Jamie Theakston

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox person James Paul Theakston (born 21 December 1970)<ref name="bbc">Template:Cite web</ref> is an English television presenter, producer, narrator and actor. He has hosted television programmes for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. He co-presented the Saturday morning BBC One children's show Live & Kicking alongside Zoe Ball between 1996 and 1999, and hosted numerous episodes of the music programme Top of the Pops between 1998 and 2003. He currently co-hosts the national breakfast show with Amanda Holden on Heart Radio.

Theakston narrated the BBC documentary series Traffic Cops from 2003 to 2015, and on Channel 5 from 2016 onwards. He has won a BAFTA award for Live & Kicking and numerous awards for his radio work, including a Sony Gold, 3 Silver awards and 4 Bronze awards, 2 Arqiva awards, 3 TRIC awards and 2 New York Radio Festival Awards.

Education

He joined the National Youth Theatre at the age of 13,<ref name="bbc" /> where he appeared in plays including Murder in the Cathedral and Marat/Sade alongside contemporaries such as Daniel Craig, but he was put off from pursuing a full-time acting career by the financial hardships that he encountered.<ref name="nyt">Template:Cite web</ref> After leaving Lancing College<ref name="theguardian">Template:Cite web</ref> with nine O-Levels and one GCSE in Maths, retaking it at BHASVIC, he attended North London Polytechnic (now London Metropolitan University),<ref name="bbcbio">Template:Cite web</ref> from which he graduated with a first class degree in business studies.<ref name="bbc" /> Whilst at university, he read traffic bulletins on BBC GLR because he wanted to get into sports reporting.<ref name="bbcbio" /><ref name="Indy1">Template:Cite news</ref>

Life and career

Radio

Before embarking on a broadcasting career, he worked for auctioneers Christie's, and planned to study art history at the Courtauld Institute.<ref name="Indy1"/> However, after undertaking football and cricket reports for GLR and Radio 5 Live, he was spotted by the BBC's head of sport and hired to present GLR's Saturday Sport Show at the age of 23.<ref name="Indy1"/> He then presented numerous shows for Radio 5 Live including Sportscall, The Jamie Theakston Cricket Show and Sport on Wednesday. Theakston joined Radio 1 in April 1999 to present the Sunday Lunch show. He fronted the 'One Big Sunday' events during 2000. He moved to a Saturday morning slot in 2001.He also acted as holiday cover on the station.

He left Radio 1 in 2002 to pursue an acting career, his last show being broadcast on 28 September. He joined London radio station Heart 106.2 in May 2005, replacing Jonathan Coleman on Heart Breakfast with Harriet Scott, which won Gold for Best Music Personality Show at the New York Festivals and the Silver Entertainment Award at the Sony Radio Academy Awards, both in 2007. Theakston (along with Scott) won the Radio Presenter of the Year award at the Arqiva Commercial Radio Awards in June 2009.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Scott left Heart Breakfast in 2013; she was replaced by Spice Girl Emma Bunton, who already had a show on the Heart network. Bunton left in 2018.

On 3 June 2019, Heart Breakfast went national across the UK, following a decision by the UK radio regulator OFCOM to reduce local programming requirements. Theakston currently hosts the show alongside Amanda Holden.

Between Bunton’s departure and Holden’s arrival, Heart DJ Lucy Horobin<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> was brought in as a temporary co host for Theakston.

Television

On television, Theakston presented The O Zone with Jayne Middlemiss from 1995 to 2000.<ref name="Indy1"/> He most notably hosted 99 episodes of Top of the Pops from 1998 to 2003, the most number of Top of the Pops episodes in the 1990s.

He co-presented both Live & Kicking (1996–1999) and The Priory alongside Zoe Ball. Theakston featured beside Zoë Ball once again in Channel 5's Britain's Best Brain series, which aired in October 2009.

He has also hosted a number of other shows, including the Channel 4 reality TV show The Games alongside Kirsty Gallacher; game show, Beg Borrow or Steal (2004); prime-time Saturday night show The People's Quiz; Channel 4's The Search; and ITV Saturday night show With A Little Help From My Friends. From July–August 2013, Theakston and Emma Bunton presented ITV's This Morning Summer on Friday mornings.

Theakston's other presenting work includes fronting the Glastonbury Festival coverage for the BBC, the Oscars, the Grammys, A Question of Pop, UK Music Hall of Fame and Guinness World Records. He narrated all episodes of Traffic Cops and its spin-off show Motorway Cops, and since 2015 has narrated episodes of Caught on Camera.

He also played himself in the mock-interview series Rock Profile in which he interviewed "celebrities" impersonated by Matt Lucas and David Walliams, and in the episode "Video Killed the Radio Star" of the TV series FM in March 2009.

Acting

As an actor, Theakston has appeared in shows such as Agatha Christie's Marple and Little Britain. Theakston has acted with Amanda Holden in Mad About Alice (2004) and worked with Adam Faith on the series Murder in Mind in 2003, shortly before Faith's death. He has also starred in the West End in the plays Art and Home and Beauty at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue. In 2004, he appeared in Agatha Christie's Miss Marple: Body in the Library.

Personal life

Theakston lived for about ten years in Wings Place, a Tudor mansion in Ditchling, East Sussex.<ref name="Telegraph">Template:Cite web</ref> Theakston married Sophie Siegle in Ditchling on 15 September 2007, and they live in west London.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> They have two children. He was previously romantically linked to socialite Lady Victoria Hervey, singer Natalie Appleton, actress Joely Richardson, and models Erin O'Connor and Sophie Dahl.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

He is a keen fencer and competed for Sussex in 1985.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> As captain of Ditchling Cricket Club,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Theakston was a member of the first cricket team from England to play the Afghan cricket team in Kabul.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

He is a member of Mensa,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> a Patron of Humanists UK and a supporter of Brighton & Hove Albion.

In September 2024, Theakston announced that he had been diagnosed with stage I laryngeal cancer, but revealed that the prognosis was "very positive". He finished treatment in January 2025, and has since made a full recovery.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Charity

Theakston took a break in 2003 to travel to Uganda to meet with former child soldiers. He is a patron for Cancervive, a charity established to address the needs of anyone whose family or friends are cancer-sufferers.Template:Citation needed

He played in his fifth successive Soccer Aid match at Old Trafford in June 2014.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Having, in 2010, saved four penalties for England against the Rest of the World in a penalty shoot-out, before missing a penalty himself in a defeat, he was later named man of the match for his performance in goal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On 4 October 2019, Theakston took a break from Heart Breakfast to set off on his Bike Britain Challenge, a cycling event for Global's charity Make Some Noise. The event lasted eight days, with Theakston cycling 650 miles from Edinburgh and arriving in London on the 11th. Along the way, he stopped at Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff and Bristol, and met numerous life-threatened children and their families.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Brothel visit, cocaine usage, and failed injunction

In 2002, Theakston's visit to a Mayfair brothel was exposed by British newspaper The Sunday People. Theakston attempted to prevent publication of his paying £40 for sex and his cocaine snorting with a legal injunction. The judge, Mr Justice Ouseley, allowed publication of the story based on interviews and said, "If a well-known man has sexual relations with a prostitute in a brothel, the desire on his part to keep their actions and 'relationship' confidential and the desire on the part of the other to exploit their actions and relationship commercially are irreconcilable." He went on to say, "I consider that the scales would be likely to come down in favour of the freedom of expression of the newspaper and of the prostitutes unless it was clear that there was a strong case of inhibiting it."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Performance credits

West End theatre

Play	Venue	Year
Marat/Sade	Playhouse
Murder in the Cathedral	Spitalfields
'Art'	Whitehall
Home and Beauty	Lyric

Filmography

Television

Year	Programme	Channel	Notes
2004	Drive (The Afternoon Play)	BBC One
1999-2002	The Priory	Channel 4
	Natural Born Losers	BBC One
	Pick n Mix	UK Play
	Comic Relief	BBC One
	Landmarks	BBC Two
	The Brits	ITV
2001	100 Greatest Kids Shows	Channel 4
	Behind the Music	VH1
	Richest Kids	ITV
	Bitesize	BBC Two
2004	The Simpsons Quiz	Channel 4
2004	The UK Music Hall of Fame	Channel 4
	50 Years, 50 Records	ITV
	The Oscars: Live	Sky One/Sky Movies
1976	Wish You Were Here	ITV
1983	Taggart	ITV
1995–2000	The O-Zone	BBC Two
1996–1999	Live & Kicking	BBC One
1997–2000	Glastonbury Festival	BBC One/BBC Two
1997–2003	Top of the Pops	BBC One
1998	Blankety Blank	BBC One	Guest
1998	Confessions	BBC One	Guest
1998	Not a Lot of People Know That	BBC One	Guest
1998–1999	Grammy Awards	BBC One
1999	Total Eclipse	BBC One
1999	It's Only TV...but I Like It	BBC One	Guest
1999	NetAid	BBC Two
1999	Phones, Robbers and Videotape	BBC One
1999	2000 Today	BBC One
1999–?	Children in Need	BBC One
1999–2000	Rock Profile	BBC Two
2000–2001	A Question of Pop	BBC One
2000	Before They Were Famous	BBC One	Guest
2000	Bob Martin	ITV
2000	BBC Music Live	BBC One
2000	Holiday	BBC One
2000	Secret Life of Stars	BBC One
2000	Stars of Tomorrow	BBC One
2000	Trading Places	BBC One
2001	The True Story of TOTP	BBC Two	Host
2001	Aqua	BBC Two
2001	Car Wars	BBC One
2001	Linda Green	BBC One
2002	Sport Relief	BBC One
	Queen's Jubilee Concert	BBC One
2003	Murder in Mind	BBC One
2003–2006	The Games	Channel 4
2003—	Traffic Cops	BBC One (2003–2015) Channel 5 (2016—)
2004	Mad About Alice	BBC One
	Beg, Borrow or Steal	BBC Two
	Little Britain	BBC Three
	Agatha Christie's Marple ("The Body in the Library")	ITV
2004–2005	With a Little Help from My Friends	ITV
2005	All*Star Cup	Sky One
2007	Concert for Diana	BBC One
	The National Lottery People's Quiz	BBC One
	The Search	Channel 4
2008–2015	Motorway Cops	BBC One
2009	FM	ITV2
2013	This Morning Summer	ITV
2013–	Forbidden History	Yesterday/UKTV
2015–	Caught on Camera	ITV
2016	Dogs Might Fly	Sky One
2017	Richard Osman's House of Games	BBC Two

Radio

Year	Programme	Channel	Notes
	Saturday Sports Show	GLR
	Sportscall	BBC Radio 5
	Friday Night on 5	BBC Radio 5
	Jamie Theakston's Cricket Show	BBC Radio 5
	Radio 5 Sport	BBC Radio 5
	The Sunday Lunch	BBC Radio 1
	The Jamie Theakston Show	BBC Radio 1
	The Griff Rhys Jones Show	BBC Radio 2
	One Big Sunday	BBC Radio 1
2005–2012	Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston and Harriet Scott	Heart London
2013–2018	Heart Breakfast with Jamie and Emma	Heart London
2019–	Heart Breakfast with Jamie and Amanda	Heart

External links

• Template:Official website
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