Simon Mayo (born 21
September 1958
in Southgate, London) is an English radio
presenter.
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Contents
- 1 Early
career
- 2 Waking
the nation with the Radio 1 breakfast show
- 3 Mid-mornings,
then back to the breakfast show
- 4 Five
Live
- 5 Radio
2
- 6 Other
Projects
- 7 Radio
Credits
- 8 References
- 9 External
links
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Early career
Mayo was educated at Solihull School, a boys' Independent
school in the English Midlands, and graduated from Warwick
University (where he had been a presenter on the student radio station,
Radio
Warwick) with a degree in history and politics. He then spent some time honing
his radio skills at Southlands Hospital Radio,
worked for four years as a presenter with BBC
Radio Nottingham, before joining the national pop network BBC
Radio 1 in 1986, presenting a two hour Saturday evening show.
In October 1987 he progressed to the weekend early slots and
then became presenter of the weekday evening show in January 1988. Five
months later he was offered the Radio 1 breakfast show, regarded as the
most prestigious presentation job in UK radio.
Waking the nation with the Radio
1 breakfast show
'Biggest' Mayo! spent five years waking up the nation with the
Radio 1 breakfast show. Throughout his tenure on the breakfast show,
Mayo was joined by news anchor Rod McKenzie and went through a series
of sidekick weather girls, including Carol Dooley, Sybil
Ruscoe, Jakki Brambles and Dianne Oxberry.
The show's producer was Ric Blaxill who also made regular
speaking contributions. A regular conceit was that the show was being
overseen by a celebrity "guest producer", played by Blaxhill without
making any attempt to disguise his normal voice.
The programme became known for various features, including On This Day In History,
soundtracked by a looped version of George
Michael's "I Want Your Sex", and the
long-running cryptic game The
Identik-Hit Quiz, where Mayo and his cohorts
would 'act' a short scene which cryptically led listeners to the title
of a hit song.
He also ran his Confessions
feature where members of the public sought absolution for their (often
frivolous or humorous) "sins",
and it moved to a television series in later years. Mayo had already
presented the dilemma show Scruples for BBC
television, and had joined his BBC Radio 1 colleagues on the host
roster for Top of the Pops.
Both On This Day In History and Confessions
spawned spin-off books.
Due to endless plays from Mayo, several unlikely hit singles
reached the UK charts, including "Kinky
Boots" by Patrick Macnee and Honor
Blackman; "Donald Where's Yer
Troosers" by Andy Stewart; and "Always Look
on the Bright Side of Life", sung and written by Eric Idle.
For helping Monty Python have a hit with the latter
13 years after it first appeared on the soundtrack to The Life of Brian,
Idle presented Mayo with a model bare foot, in the style of the
animated version which used to end the opening titles to the TV show.
When Mayo's wife Hilary, a producer whom he met at BBC Radio
Nottingham, gave birth to their son Ben in 1991, Mayo took an extended
period of paternity leave. The couple
subsequently had two more children; Natasha born in 1993 and Joe born
in 1999.
Presenters who covered the breakfast show when Mayo took
holidays included Bruno Brookes, Gary King, Phillip
Schofield, Nicky Campbell and Mark
Goodier.
Mayo, like all of Radio 1's high-profile presenters of the
time, would take his turn to spend a week in a coastal area of the UK
during the Radio 1 Roadshows which occurred
for three months of the summer. For a short while, he also presented an
additional weekend show for the station on a Sunday afternoon and
provisionally titled O Solo Mayo - to cover for the
absent Phillip Schofield, who was working
in the West End.
Mid-mornings, then back to the
breakfast show
Mayo officially gave up the breakfast show in 1993, though he
had been on another extended period of paternity leave when the
announcement was made. His stand-in Goodier was confirmed as his
permanent replacement.
Mayo moved on to the mid-morning slot from 9 am to 12 midday,
and survived the cull of long-standing presenters which Radio 1
underwent the same year on the arrival of controller Matthew
Bannister and his wish to rebrand the station as younger and
more 'cutting edge'.
In addition to his mid-morning show, from April 1994 - October
1995, Mayo also presented another show entitled Simon Mayo's
Classic Years. This was where he got to play 2 hours of
classic pop tunes. The show originally went out on a Sunday lunchtime
from 12-2pm, but in November 1994 went out from 10am-12pm on Sundays.
In January 1997, Mayo made a brief return to the breakfast
show for three weeks when Chris Evans was dismissed,
but both Mayo and Radio 1 ruled out the possibilities of a permanent
return to the programme. On his first morning as breakfast stand-in, he
read out an email
from a man who had emigrated to New Zealand four years earlier and had
arrived back in the UK that morning, and was "delighted to hear you're
still doing the breakfast show".
In 1999 Simon Mayo broke a world record by broadcasting for 37
hours in aid of that year's Comic Relief.
Mayo remained on the mid-morning slot until he left Radio 1 in
2001. His final show was on Friday 16th February 2001 & before
signing off, he said;One of the reasons I'm not going to do a
DLT is that I've nothing to complain about at all - though as I'll
still be employed by the BBC it'd be a stupid thing to do.
His final record was "Ace Of Spades" by Motörhead.
Five Live
In May 2001, after 15 years with Radio 1, Mayo joined another
national BBC station, Radio Five Live to present an
afternoon programme.
Mayo duly began broadcasting on Five Live every weekday from 1
to 4 pm, and there he remains. He was on air when the September 11, 2001
attacks occurred, and received acclaim for the way he handled the
station's reaction to the atrocity.
The programme generally combines topical debates, interviews
and reviews. It comes live from Westminster each Wednesday for live
coverage of Prime Minister's
Questions, with discussion and debate afterwards with political
correspondents and MPs. The programme also
features Mayo's old Radio 1 sidekick Mark
Kermode reviewing the new movie releases each Friday afternoon.
Radio 2
From October 2001 - April 2007, Mayo hosted the Album Chart
show each week for BBC Radio 2. Alongside this, on 2 January 2006, he presented The
Ultimate Music Year for the station, where listeners got the
chance to vote for their favourite year for music. He has also
presented many Sold on Song projects, presented the
Top 100 Albums and provided holiday cover for Johnnie
Walker on Sundays. Mayo still remains with BBC
Radio 2, but now presents the Radio 2 Music Club
every Monday night from 11.30pm-12.30am, travelling to London from his
family home in Walberswick in Suffolk.
Other Projects
On TV he presented the first and second series of BBC show Winning
Lines as part of the corporation's National
Lottery output. He also hosted tv version of his radio feature
"Confesions".
Radio Credits
- BBC Radio Nottingham - The
Simon Mayo Show 1981 - 1986
- BBC Radio 1 - Saturday Evenings
7.30-9.30pm 1986 - 1987
- BBC Radio 1 - Weekend Early Mornings
6-8am Late 1987
- BBC Radio 1 - Monday-Thursday Evenings
7.30-10pm January - May 1988
- BBC Radio 1 - Breakfast Show 6-9am May
1988 - September 1993
- BBC Radio 1 - Mid Morning Show
9am-12midday October 1993 - February 2001
- BBC Radio 5 Live - Afternoon Show
1-4pm May 2001 - Present
- BBC Radio 2 - Album Chart Show Monday
evenings 7-8pm October 2001 - April 2007
- BBC Radio 2 - Music Club Monday
Nights/Tuesday Mornings 11.30pm - 12.30am April 2007 - Present
References
External links
