James Roderick Moir, commonly known by his stage name Vic Reeves, is an English comedian and artist. He has a double act with Bob Mortimer as Reeves & Mortimer. He is known for his surreal sense of humour.
In 2003, Reeves and Mortimer were listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. In a 2005 poll to find the Comedians' Comedian, Reeves and Mortimer were voted the ninth-greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
Moir formed the Fashionable Five, a group of five friends (including Jack Dent, who ran the original Fan Club) who would follow bands like the Enid and Free onto stage, and perform pranks (including Moir pretending to have a brass hand, and following a Terry Scott lookalike around Darlington town centre in single-file formation). Moir had an early breakthrough with the help of comedian Malcolm Hardee.
Before finding fame with his comedy, Moir was a member of several bands with many different names and musical styles, in which he usually played lead guitar and/or sang. He sold tapes of his early material in the back pages of NME magazine under the name International Cod. Mark Lamarr, later to become a team captain on Shooting Stars, was sent a tape of Moir's band Fan Tan Tiddly Span. When Moir appeared, as Vic Reeves, on Never Mind the Buzzcocks in 1998, Lamarr repeatedly played a sample from the song "Fantasia (Side A)" in an attempt to embarrass him.
In 1983, Moir began a part-time course at a local art college, developed his love of painting and eventually persuaded a local art gallery to stage an exhibition of his work. His drawings and paintings have been used in his television shows and form a major part of his 1999 book, Sun Boiled Onions.
