Stuart Ashen (born 16 December 1976), commonly known by his online alias Ashens (), is a British comedian, animator, actor and online reviewer of various products, which are usually video games, toys, and food. The items he reviews are often of low quality.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
Early life
Ashen is from Heartsease Estate, Norwich and attended Heartsease High School. He previously worked for PC World and Norwich Union.
Career
Ashen made his first television appearance on a 2008 episode of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, where he played a cameo role as Mr Noseybonk, a character from the 80's BBC children's show Jigsaw.
Ashen guest starred on The Armstrong and Miller Show for their "The Node" segment in October 2009.
In 2010, Ashen created the series Ashen's Tech Dump for BBC Online Comedy. In 2011 Ashens co-starred alongside Karen Hayley in another BBC Online Comedy series Back Space. In 2012 he starred as himself in The Proxy, a sci-fi webseries produced by ChannelFlip in partnership with Dell Alienware. The series took eight days to film, consists of 10 episodes and won a Marketing Week "Engage Award" in the "Gaming and Entertainment" section.
Ashen released the book Fifty-Thousand Shades of Grey on 23 September 2012; it parodies the erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey. The title is literal, as the book simply consists of the phrase "Shades of Grey" repeated 50,000 times.
In 2013, Ashen, along with Emma Blackery, Dan Howell (danisnotonfire) and Phil Lester (AmazingPhil), starred as a contestant in a re-make of the 1980s TV show Knightmare during the YouTube Geek Week event.
As of July 2017, Ashen has produced over 630 videos, has over 1.2 million subscribers to his primary YouTube channel Ashens and over 352 million video views. His secondary channel, used mainly for DVD extra-style clips, has over 300,000 subscribers and over 37 million video views. In addition to his own channels he has also produced videos for other YouTube channels, which include "The Multiverse", a geek-themed channel controlled by ChannelFlip.
Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild
Ashen wrote and starred in Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild, a feature film released in August 2013, for YouTube's "Geek Week". The film also stars Warwick Davis and Robert Llewellyn, and was produced by the multi-channel network ChannelFlip, in association with The Multiverse. The film was partially paid for through crowdfunding website Indiegogo with contributions totalling US$73,690 at the end of the month, which comprised 41% of the US$180,000 budget. As of June 2016 it has been viewed over a million times on YouTube. A remastered and slightly extended edition of the movie was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 14 July 2014. In 2016, Ashen confirmed a sequel to the movie at a fan screening.
Published works
In November 2015 Ashen released the book Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of, a collection of textual reviews of poor retro games, released through the Unbound crowdfunding platform. The book reached its funding target in 12 hours, the fastest to do so on the platform.
On 24 February 2017 Ashen announced a sequel to Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of, titled Attack of the Flickering Skeletons: More Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of, again through Unbound, was released on 2 November 2017.
Personal life
Ashen was born and currently lives in Norwich, England.
Filmography
Web series
Television
Film
Source of the article : Wikipedia
EmoticonEmoticon