Russell Howard and his wife, Cerys Morgan, have set up the Felix Foundation in memory of their baby son, Felix, who died shortly after birth. The charity will help families through miscarriage, premature birth, stillbirth and neonatal death. Its launch is a comedy gala at the O2 in London on 8 February.
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It is a new kind of project for a comic best known for turning the week’s headlines into stand-up.
The comic behind Good News
Howard is 46. The BBC counts him among the best-known stand-up comics in the UK, known from Mock the Week and Russell Howard’s Good News.
He was born in Bath and grew up in Radstock, a few miles away in Somerset. He studied economics at the University of the West of England. In 2006 he won Best Compère at the Chortle Awards, and his Fringe show that year earned an Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination.
Good News began on BBC Three on 22 October 2009, pitched at viewers under 25. Each week he gave his own view of the big stories, with room for the lighter ones too. It ran to ten series and became the channel’s highest-rated entertainment show. In 2014 it moved to BBC Two.
He was a regular on the Mock the Week panel until 2010. Between 2006 and 2008 he also co-hosted a Sunday morning show on BBC Radio 6 Music with Jon Richardson. He later said radio felt restrictive because he could not read an audience.
His first American television spot came on Conan on 3 August 2011. In December 2015 he made his acting debut in A Gert Lush Christmas, a BBC Two comedy-drama he co-wrote.
This summer he played a run of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, and he is now touring Britain.
A private family
He and Morgan, an NHS doctor, have been a couple since 2004. They have an older son, born in August 2024.
What he said on 4 September
Howard shared the news in a statement on his social media accounts on Friday 4 September 2026. Felix had died earlier in the year. The couple had never made public that they were expecting a second child.
He called it “the most devastating time of our lives”. He thanked the hospital staff for their compassion and kindness. He singled out a bereavement midwife, Lauren, who had lived through a similar loss and retrained to support other families.
That care, he said, led to a promise between him and Morgan to try to help other parents in the same position.
What the Felix Foundation will pay for
The Guardian reports that the foundation aims to meet the needs of parents, siblings and other close relatives after such a loss. It plans to fund specialist facilities and training, among other forms of support.
Howard’s statement set out two strands in more detail, according to the Independent. Yearly grants would let midwives train further in bereavement care, including counselling qualifications. Money would also pay for dedicated rooms and equipment in maternity and neonatal units.
Who is on the bill at the O2
Howard will host the gala himself. Michael McIntyre and Jimmy Carr are on a bill of eight comics. John Bishop, Greg Davies and Aisling Bea are also booked, as is Mo Gilligan. Michelle Wolf and Guz Khan complete the line-up.
They are all performing for free, and Howard said he would “never forget the generosity” of that.
He hopes his son’s name will come to stand for kindness, compassion and laughter. For a comic who spent years finding the good story in a bad week, the gala turns that habit towards a cause of his own.
