Binns was nominated at the Edinburgh Festival for the Edinburgh Comedy Award 2007 for his hospital radio DJ character Ivan Brackenbury. He has been twice nominated for the Adelaide Fringe Comedy Award, in 2010 and 2011. He was voted a Foster's Comedy God in 2010. He also was nominated for a Chortle Award in 2011 and was also named in a list of their 50 Most Memorable Gigs of the decade. He won the Best International Act at the 2013 New Zealand International Comedy Festival and was nominated for Best Comedy Show at FringeWorld, Perth in 2015 and 2016. He appears in the BBC MI5 drama Spooks, Series 3 of the IT Crowd on Channel 4, and, in character as Ivan Brackenbury, on The Jason Byrne Show and Knowing Me Knowing Yule with Alan Partridge. As Ian D Montfort he had a BBC Radio 2 series called Ian D Montfort is Unbelievable, broadcast in February 2013. and appeared in the comedy movieEaten by Lions in 2017. Besides writing comedy for television and radio, Binns has appeared on other television shows, such as , Bullrun, Oblivion and as a writer on Trigger Happy TV, for which he earned "best comedy moment" and "TV moment of 2001" awards. His first television appearances were Friday Night Armistice and Lee and Herring's Fist of Fun, and has gone on to further appear in the Channel 4-based late night sports talk showUnder the Moon, with Danny Kelly and stage appearances at the Bloomsbury Theatre and Garrick Theatre. Binns has worked on Radio 1, Virgin, BRMB and GLR, Talksport UK, Hallam FM, Sheffield and Key 103, appearing either as himself or as hospital radio character Ivan Brackenbury. Binns is the co-writer of BBC 1's Hospital People, part of the BBC's Comedy Playhouse, in which he plays the five lead characters Ivan Brackenbury, Ian D Montfort, Susan Mitchell, Terry Boyle and Father Kenny. He has written the book How to Get Famous - A Cynical Guide.
Controversies
In 1999, London-based radio stationXfm was fined £50,000 by Ofcom following complaints regarding the use of coarse sexual innuendo when discussing a bestial pornography video with a listener during the Tom Binns Breakfast Show. Parent companyCapital Radio decided not to sack Binns but in a meeting shortly after the fine was issued, the Radio Authority made it clear to Capital Radio that this would negatively affect the decision to renew the XFM licence. In December 2009, Binns was fired from BRMB by its owners Orion Media after he cut short the Queen's Christmas Message. The Message was played into his show in error instead of the expected two-minute news bulletin. Binns joked, "Two words: bore-ring". He then went on to joke that the British monarchy can't be as good for tourism as some people claim because "the French executed theirs and people still visit France" and played a George Michael record with the link "from one queen to another".
