Career
The duo met at Clapham College and joined a theatre club in 1972. They wrote and starred in a show which parodied much of the other shows being held in London that year. Then they formed their own theatre company and wrote and toured productions around the United Kingdom for the rest of the 1970s.
Steen and Sweeney appeared on television together for the first time in 1981 with the Independent Television children"s show CBTV, followed by one of Channel 4"s first comedies, Little Armadillos and a role for Steen in Ben Elton"s comedy Happy Families.
Rory Bremner recruited them as resident support performers on his first sketch show for the British Broadcasting Corporation, and shortly afterwards they starred as poets Byron (Steen) and Coleridge (Sweeney) in an episode of Blackadder the Third. Steen had a major roles in Sweeney"s award winning play, Danny"s Wake, which was subsequently adapted into a sitcom for Radio 4.
Steen continued to play Billy throughout the two series. Steen played Liam in another radio play, Any Bloke.
Sweeney was recruited as a solo performer thereafter for Whose Lincolnshire Is lieutenant Anyway?, but Steen was soon summoned for the Channel 4 improvisation show, and was a runaway success in his six episodes.
He also guested on Have I Got News for You in 1992 (without Sweeney). He has combined one-off acting roles on television with taking improv tours, with Sweeney and others, around the United Kingdom and beyond.
