Nuhr spent his childhood in Wesel until the age of four, after which he moved to Düsseldorf with his family. He later graduated from the Leibniz Gymnasium and has one brother. Coming from a Catholic family, Nuhr was an altar boy and studied fine arts and history at the University of Essen from 1981. He passed his first state examination in 1988 and began his stage appearances in a school theater group.
Nuhr founded the cabaret duo V.E.V.-K.Barett with Frank Küster in 1986 and they made their first joint appearances with the program Haben Sie sich Ihre Schranknummer gemerkt? in 1987. They created the program Pralle Pracht in 1989 and performed under the slightly changed name V.E.V.-Kabarett with the next program Schrille Stille. Zipfeltreffen was the name of the duo's last joint program.
From 1994, Nuhr was on the road with his first solo program Nuhr am nörgeln! He received the German Cabaret Award in 1998 for his program Nuhr weiter so and the German Comedy Award for the best live performance in 2003.
After 22 years, he gave up the moderation of the cabaret festival in the Wühlmäusen in favor of his fine art in 2022 and received a special prize, which he had often handed over. Numerous television appearances also made him known beyond the cabaret scene, for example in Scheibenwischer, Hüsch und Co., Die Harald Schmidt Show, Quatsch Comedy Club, Genial daneben, Schillerstraße or 7 Tage, 7 Köpfe.
His program Ich bin's Nuhr was seen by about half a million people. After his first appearance on Sat.1 in 2004, he has been on ZDF since 2006 with a similar program at the end of the year. In mid-2007, ZDF broadcast two episodes of Nuhr - Wer's glaubt, wird selig, in which Nuhr dealt with questions about faith and religion.
On October 24, 2008, Nuhr took over the moderation of the German Comedy Award for the first time. From November 3, 2009, he was live on ZDF with the four-part comedy series Nuhr so on four Tuesday evenings. In 2009, he participated in A Tribute to Die Fantastischen Vier for the twentieth anniversary of the hip-hop group.
In 2010, he produced a two-part special for RTL on the 2010 World Cup, in which he commented ironically on the subject of soccer. He also produces weekly cabaret features for the radio station WDR 2. From July 2012 to March 2013, he co-hosted the quiz show Null gewinnt with Ralph Caspers on ARD's early evening program.
Since 2012, he has regularly participated in the ARD theme week with contributions appropriate to the respective theme, most recently in 2022. In 2013, Nuhr hosted the Comedy Award for the sixth time. In October 2014, Carolin Kebekus followed him as host after six years; in 2015 and 2016 he was chairman of the jury.
In 2014, Nuhr was a regular guest on the RTL show Mario Barth deckt auf! and presented several cases of tax waste together with Barth. In 2015, the ARD format Nuhr ab 18 started with him as host. In the 30-minute show, he presented four young comedians at a time.
In 2022, he is on tour in Germany and Switzerland with his program Kein Scherz! He is married and has a daughter (* 1996). Since 2014, he has played tennis for the age group 50 team of TC Bovert in the Niederrheinliga.
