Stuart Ashen

Stuart Clive Ashen grew up on the Heartsease Estate, Norwich and attended Heartsease High School.[5][6][7] He previously worked for PC World and Norwich Union.[5] His mother, Pauline, died of cancer when he was eight years old.[8]

Ashen has been reviewing food and various products in a distinctive style on YouTube since 2006. The items he humorously reviews are often low quality and procured from various variety stores (notably UK's Poundland), or are poor knockoffs of well-received or well-known products, which he refers to as "tat". Featured products are typically personally sourced by Ashen in the UK or during holidays abroad or submitted by viewers.

He frequently collaborated with his friend and fellow YouTube vlogger Barry Lewis, and in the mid-2010s, had a podcast and YouTube channel with him, both called Barshens.

As of 8 August 2023, Ashen has produced 920 videos on his primary YouTube channel, which has 1.6 million subscribers and over 545 million video views.[7][9] His secondary channel, used mainly for DVD extra-style clips, along with an annual look with Daniel Hardcastle at a series of Advent calendars throughout December, has over 318,000 subscribers and over 59 million video views.[10] In addition to his own channels he has also produced videos for other YouTube channels, which included "The Multiverse", a geek-themed channel controlled by ChannelFlip.[11]

In 2013, Ashen, along with Emma Blackery, Dan Howell (Daniel Howell) and Phil Lester (AmazingPhil), starred as a contestant in a remake of the 1980s TV show Knightmare during the YouTube Geek Week event.[7][12][13]

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 80s BBC children's show Jigsaw.[14]

Ashen guest starred on The Armstrong & Miller Show for their "The Node" segment in October 2009.[15] In early 2009, Ashen also released a very limited edition DVD anthology dubbed Ashenthology, containing a selection of his early videos as well as some unseen videos and animations, some of these videos were later released on his second YouTube Account; extraashens.[16]

In 2010, Ashen created the series Ashen's Tech Dump for BBC Online Comedy.[17] In 2011, Ashen co-starred alongside Karen Hayley in another BBC Online Comedy series Back Space.[18] The next year, he starred as himself in The Proxy, a sci-fi webseries produced by ChannelFlip in partnership with Dell Alienware.[6][19] The series took eight days to film, consists of 10 episodes and won a Marketing Week "Engage Award" in the "Gaming and Entertainment" section.[20]

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.[30][31] The book reached its funding target in 12 hours.

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.[32]

Ashen released the book Fifty-Thousand Shades of Grey on 23 September 2012; it parodies the popular erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey.[33] The title is literal, as the book simply consists of the phrase "Shades of Grey" repeated 50,000 times.

As of 2013, Ashen lives in his hometown of Norwich.[6][7] He has a doctorate in psychology,[2] but claims to have never professionally worked in the field.[34]

• Stuart Ashen at IMDb