Rachel Parris And Marcus Brigstocke Share The Sweetest Love Story

The fiercely funny Rachel Parris is back behind the satirical hot topics desk. Though the parody series The Mash Report was axed last year by the BBC, the late night comedy show has found a new home on Dave, and with Nish Kumar stepping aside after five seasons, regular guest Parris is taking over the hosting reins for the newly renamed Late Night Mash.

As it happens, Parris has found love with another familiar face on the comedy circuit. But who is her husband Marcus Brigstocke, and how did they meet? The pair originally met at Edinburgh Festival back in 2013, where Brigstocke — a fellow comedian and well-known comedy panellist — was putting together an improvised show, and open to meeting new collaborators.

“Rachel was one of the people I met. Both of us were in relationships,” he told The Times. “I said to a friend: ‘She is great, by the way.’ He looked at me funny. I said: ‘Obviously she’s gorgeous but we’re friends. It would ruin everything.’ And that’s how it was for a long time.” A few years later, at a New Years Eve party, the pair shared a kiss, and the rest was history. “It was obvious to both of us that this was right. I was more tentative and cautious, as I’d already had a failed marriage and kids,” Brigstocke remarked, referring to his former wife Sophie Prideaux, and their two children.

“We got married at Battersea Arts Centre in 2019,” Parris added, in the 2021 interview. “It’s still only three years, but we knew it was serious after two weeks. It was important going into it that I’d hung out with him and his children. They were teenagers by the time we got together. They already know who they are. I’m still learning. It helps that we just get on quite well and they are easy kids to love. It’s like everything in life, it’s beautiful and it’s hard.”

Like many of us who turned to unusual forms of entertainment while confined to our homes during the early days of lockdown, the comedian couple found a creative way to keep themselves amused, filming a series of impressive lip-syncs. Though it’s hard to pick an overall winner — Brigstocke’s rendition of “The Power Of Love” is surely up there — Parris’ dramatic rendition of Céline Dion’s “All By Myself” ultimately takes the crown.

The pair also went through a tough time together during lockdown, and have bravely spoken out about losing their first baby to miscarriage during a period when visitors were strictly limited in hospitals. "It was really the darkest thing that we could have imagined happening with our pregnancy,” Parris told Kate Thornton on the White Wine Question Time podcast. The couple later welcomed a son, Billy, together. “He’s our miracle,” Parris wrote in her book Advice From Strangers: Everything I Know From People I Don’t Know.

For further support, information, and advice about pregnancy loss, head to The Miscarriage Association.