Quick Facts
Biography
Celia Pacquola (born 12 February 1983) is an Australian comedian, writer, presenter, and actor who performs predominantly in Australia and the UK.
Career
Radio
Pacquola has written, presented, and guested on Australian and British radio, presenting Red Hot Go and Fox Summer Breakfast on Fox FM and The Comedy Hour on ABC Radio. She has written and performed for BBC Radio 4 shows including Shappi Talk, What's So Funny?, It's Your Round, The Headset, The Unbelievable Truth, and Britain Versus the World.
Television
Pacquola has also written for television shows such as Network Ten's Good News Week and series two of ABC1's award-winning Laid, in which she also starred as 'EJ'.She starred in and co-wrote the first episode of the second season of It's a Date. She played the role of Nat in the ABC TV series Utopia and Dolly in The Beautiful Lie. The actor won the "best guest or supporting actress in a television drama" AACTA Award for her role in The Beautiful Lie.In 2016, she collaborated with Luke McGregor to write and star in the series Rosehaven. Rosehaven won the 2017 AWGIE Award for Best Comedy script.
In 2020, Pacquola won the seventeenth season of Dancing with the Stars Australia, winning the mirrorball trophy and A$50,000 for her charity, the Safe Steps Family Violence and Support Centre.
She has performed and guested on Australian TV on Rove, The Project, Sleuth 101, Celebrity Name Game, Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation, Spicks and Specks, The Weekly with Charlie Pickering, Have You Been Paying Attention?, and Hughesy, We Have a Problem, and has been seen on British TV shows such as The Rob Brydon Show, Russell Howard's Good News, Live At The Apollo, and Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
Live performance
Pacquola has written and performed live shows since 2007. Her 2009 show Am I Strange? was performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, where it won Best Comedy and The Age Critics Award for Best Australian Act. She performed in 2009 at the Sydney Opera House with This Was The Year That Was. The following year she showcased Flying Solos again at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and in 2012 she returned with Delayed.
She has been nominated for and won a number of awards including best first-time entrant (Raw Recruit Prize) at the Raw Comedy Awards in 2006.
In 2016, Pacquola hosted the Oxfam Gala for the Melbourne Comedy Festival, becoming the youngest woman to do so.
In 2018, she won the Helpmann Award for Best Comedy Performer for her stand-up comedy show All Talk.
In 2019, Pacquola appeared as J. G. (Jenny) Milford in the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Oriel Gray's The Torrents.
Film
Pacquola's first movie role was in the 2018 New Zealand romantic comedy The Breaker Upperers alongside Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek, both of whom wrote and directed the film.
