Jamie Theakston

Education

His family had moved to the Sussex area in 1967, with his father being the UK general manager of Centronics in Burgess Hill, known mostly for the industry-standard 36-pin parallel port micro ribbon connector. He attended Ditchling primary school. He played in goal from 1979-83 for Ditchling junior football team, where he was in the cub scouts.

He joined the National Youth Theatre at the age of 13, 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. After leaving Lancing College with nine O-Levels and one GCSE in Maths, retaking it at BHASVIC. He gained three A levels in 1989.

He attended North London Polytechnic (now London Metropolitan University), from which he graduated with a first class degree in business studies. Whilst at university, he read traffic bulletins on BBC GLR because he wanted to get into sports reporting.

He played cricket for Ditchling throughout the 1990s. His father had previously played for the local team from 1969, as an opening batsman, and captained the team, and was goalkeeper for the football team, like his son.

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. However, after undertaking football and cricket reports for GLR and BBC 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. He then presented numerous shows for BBC 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. 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 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. 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. Theakston married Sophie Siegle in Ditchling on 15 September 2007, and they live in west London. 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.

He is a keen fencer and competed for Sussex in 1985. As captain of Ditchling Cricket Club, Theakston was a member of the first cricket team from England to play the Afghan cricket team in Kabul.

He is a member of Mensa, 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.

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.

He played in his fifth successive Soccer Aid match at Old Trafford in June 2014. 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.

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.

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."

Performance credits

Filmography

Television

Radio

References

References

1. British Broadcasting Corporation. (1 November 2003). "Patrick Kielty, Almost Live – Guest profile". BBC.
2. ''Mid Sussex Times'' Friday 29 June 1979
3. ''Mid Sussex Times'' Friday 20 July 1979, page 16
4. ''Mid Sussex Times'' Thursday 4 June 1998, page 1
5. ''Mid Sussex Times'' Friday 26 February 1982, page 18
6. ''Mid Sussex Times'' Friday 19 November 1982, page 18
7. ''Mid Sussex Times'' Friday 16 November 1979, page 22
8. (17 July 2006). "It's a stage they've all been through".
9. (20 Dec 1999). "Jamie Theakston: Light. Frothy. Yippee...".
10. "Jamie Theakston". BBC.
11. Morris, Sophie. (19 December 2005). "Jamie Theakston: My Life In Media". [[The Independent]].
12. ''Sussex Express'' Friday 30 August 1991, page 33
13. ''Sussex Express'' Friday 22 September 1972, page 31
14. John Plunkett. (8 June 2009). "Jamie Theakston and Harriet Scott win commercial radio presenter award".
15. (8 January 2019). "Kelly Brook joins JK at Heart for London Drive".
16. (14 May 2014). "Jamie Theakston to sell his beautiful Sussex home".
17. (13 June 2011). "Exterior | Jamie Theakston's quirky London home | housetohome.co.uk".
18. (August 19, 2005). ""Theak Show" - The Evening Standard".
19. (2 December 2008). "Jamie Theakston Quick Q&A". Xfm.
20. (1 May 2009). "Village cricketers lose in Kabul". BBC News.
21. Boone, Jon. (1 May 2009). "Afghans beat English side as village cricket comes to Kabul". The Guardian.
22. Jones, Douglas. (13 February 2012). "IQ of Famous People | Famous IQ Scores | Famous IQ's".
23. (2 June 2004). "The search for intelligent life – This Britain – UK". [[The Independent]].
24. (2024-09-17). "Jamie Theakston: Heart Radio host reveals he has laryngeal cancer".
25. Mapstone, Lucy. "Soccer Aid 2012: MSN speaks to the stars raising money for Unicef".
26. "Jamie's natural ability in front of an audience and vast presenting experience make him the perfect host or after-dinner speaker".
27. "Jamie's Bike Britain Challenge".
28. The Guardian. (14 February 2002). "Prostitutes had rights in Theakston case".