The Twelfth Man

Who is The Twelfth Man?

The Twelfth Man is the name for a series of comedy productions by Australian satirist Billy Birmingham. Birmingham, a skilled impersonator, is generally known for parodying Australian sports commentators' voices. As befits the name, Birmingham particularly focuses on cricket commentators such as Richie Benaud, Bill Lawry and Tony Greig. This is also because many of Australia's cricket commentators have distinctive and easily identifiable voices and accents.

The parodies, released periodically on CD, are designed as a comical look "behind the scenes" of the Nine Network's cricket commentary. Birmingham traditionally plays all the roles. Benaud himself sends a critique of each CD to Birmingham and is known to have a mixed opinion of the recordings, due predominantly to Birmingham's use of profanity. All albums were produced and engineered by David Frogatt.

The 12th Man's most popular song is "Marvellous!" featuring all the main three commentators. It was first recorded as a single in 1992, with backing vocals by Jimmy Barnes, John Farnham, Diesel and Glenn Shorrock among others. An updated version, with some of the commentators changed, was featured on Still the 12th Man. He has since released an updated version of the song entitled "Marvellous 2006" on his latest album Boned!. It can be heard at the 12th Man's MySpace. In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 22 November 2009, Birmingham announced that Boned! would be his last studio album as The Twelfth Man.