Jamie Theakston

Education

Born in Cuckfield, Sussex, Theakston was educated at two independent schools: the preparatory school of Hurstpierpoint College near the village of Hurstpierpoint in West Sussex, followed by Lancing College in the village of Lancing, and Brighton Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College in Hove.

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 was put off from pursuing a full-time acting career by the financial hardships that he encountered. After leaving college with nine O-Levels and one GCSE in Maths, he attended North London Polytechnic, 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.

Radio

Before embarking on a broadcasting career, he worked for auctioneers Christie's, and was going to study art history at the Courtauld Institute. After undertaking football and cricket reports for both GLR and Radio 5 Live, he was spotted by the BBC's head of sport and presented GLR's Saturday Sport Show at the age of 23. 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 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.

Television

On television, after presenting The O Zone with Jayne Middlemiss, he has most notably hosted Top of the Pops (1998–2003), Live & Kicking (1996–1999) and The Priory. The latter two shows he co-presented alongside Zoë Ball. His 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 hosted the Channel 4 reality TV show The Games alongside Kirsty Gallacher. He was also the host of a 2004 game show, Beg Borrow or Steal. He presented the ITV Saturday night show With A Little Help From My Friends. He also appeared in a 2004 episode of the ITV series Agatha Christie's Marple.

Theakston also played himself in the mock-interview series Rock Profile in which he interviews "celebrities" impersonated by Matt Lucas and David Walliams. The programme was shown on the now defunct channel UK Play. He also appeared alongside Walliams in an episode of Little Britain.

The Priory was commissioned by Chris Evans's then production company Ginger Productions. Despite initially strong ratings, the show failed to capitalise on the demise of TFI Friday (also a Ginger production), and figures slowly dropped; a fourth series was never commissioned.

More recently Theakston has hosted the prime-time Saturday night show The People's Quiz and produced and presented on Channel 4's The Search, which was nominated for a Rose d'Or award at the International Television Festival.

He played himself in the episode "Video Killed the Radio Star" of the TV series FM in March 2009.

Theakston featured beside Zoë Ball once again in Channel 5's Britain's Best Brain series, which aired in October 2009.

Theakston has narrated all episodes of Traffic Cops and its spin-off show Motorway Cops.

In July and August 2013, Theakston along with Emma Bunton presented ITV's This Morning Summer on Friday mornings. Since 2015, he has narrated episodes of Caught on Camera for ITV. In 2016, he presented Dogs Might Fly for Sky1.

Acting

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. The couple have two sons – Sidney, born 11 April 2008, and Kit, born 29 September 2009.

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 and a supporter of Brighton & Hove Albion.

In 2002 he was the subject of a Daily Mail article, titled "The shaming of Jamie", which detailed his admission to visiting a brothel where he was allegedly blackmailed by a sex worker.

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.

Filmography

Television presenting

Radio