Frankie Boyle was born in Glasgow in 1972 where he attended St Conval's Primary and Holyrood Secondary School, before studying at Landside College, Aston University in Birmingham, and the University of Sussex.
After graduating with a BA in English literature he worked in a mental health hospital and trained as a teacher in Edinburgh before becoming a fulltime standup comedian in 1995, honing his craft at the Stand Comedy Club.
He began to attract a wider audience when he became a regular panellist on the BBC’s Mock the Week in 2005, and his four years on the programme saw him become notorious for edgy jokes which often attracted tabloid attention – and also saw to him sell out huge tours across Britain.
Since then he has made a number of other television shows including Channel 4 sketch programme Tramadol Nights, Frankie Boyle's New World Order and Frankie Boyle's Tour of Scotland.
Boyle has also published a number of books, and this year his first novel, Meantime, was nominated for Bloody Scotland's Debut of the Year award for crime writing.
Here are 12 funny and insighful quotes from the multitalented Scot.
1. Frankie Boyle on...the Conservative Party
"The Conservative party now exists largely to misinform the public, to convince voters struggling through austerity that they have the same interests as billionaires and corporations." Photo: Dominic Lipinski
2. Frankie Boyle on...racism
"A lot of racism comes from projection. White Americans have a stereotype of black people being criminals purely because they can't acknowledge that it was actually white people that stole them from Africa in the first place." Photo: Contributed
3. Frankie Boyle on...fame
"In the future we will all be famous for 15 minutes. It will be on a daytime magazine programme and we will each wear a tasteful shirt and slacks combination. We'll be interviewed by a soothing voice under a clock that's permanently set to 4pm. We will talk about the weather. We will record for months to get 15 minutes they can use in the edit." Photo: Contributed
4. Frankie Boyle on...political correctness
"I'm actually all for political correctness. If you want to work to change the usage of a word that's discriminatory then fine, I'm behind you. But that's a conversation that needs to be had in the culture. You can't just decide that commonly used parts of a language are evil and that the people who didn't get the memo must be bad people." Photo: Contributed