Phillip Schofield
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Phillip Schofield (born on April 1, 1962 in Oldham, Lancashire, England) is a British television presenter and occasional actor and singer.
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[edit] Television
When he was 17, he moved with his family to New Zealand where he made his TV debut presenting the children's music programme Shazam! in 1982. After a year or so, he moved back to the UK, where he first appeared on UK television presenting Children's BBC on weekdays (from "the broom cupboard") in the '80s and then Going Live! on Saturday mornings for many years.
He then moved onto adult-oriented TV with various documentaries and holiday programmes for ITV. Schofield presented Talking Telephone Numbers for five series until its demise, and the National Lottery - Winning Lines programme for the BBC.
He currently presents a daytime TV talk-show, This Morning on ITV, along with Fern Britton, Monday - Thursday, and Ruth Langsford on Fridays.
He also presented Test the Nation, a BBC nationwide quiz, alongside Anne Robinson and the daytime programme, Have I Been Here Before?
In 2006 he co-presented the celebrity reality television show, Dancing on Ice.
Following the success of that show and his continued spot on This Morning, ITV signed Schofield to an exclusive two year contract (a so called Golden handcuffs deal) in July of that year.[1] He was replaced on the BBC's Test the Nation by Danny Wallace.
However his first project following this development (a prime-time Saturday night gameshow called It's Now Or Never) was axed after only one episode, which received viewing figures of just 1.7 million. "As a commercial broadcaster ITV is occasionally forced to take decisions like this to protect the schedule as a whole and the programme in question," said an ITV spokeswoman.[2]
During the run of the ITV reality show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here!, Phillip co-hosted the new ITV1 spin-off series I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here! Exclusive with Sheree Murphy.
[edit] Radio
During the same period Schofield was presenting Going Live!, he was also broadcasting on BBC Radio 1 with a Sunday show (also called Going Live).
When Radio 1 made the switch from medium wave to FM Stereo in 1988 he was one of the presenters chosen to help with the launch by officiating at the turning on of the Southend transmitter. During his 2005 appearance on Room 101, Schofield recalled how a large crowd gathered in expectation of Simon Mayo arriving by helicopter to turn on the transmitter. Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication, Mayo instead flew to nearby Norwich. Realising the crowd would be disappointed by Mayo's failure to appear Schofield and an unnamed producer fled in a Radio 1 outside broadcast vehicle without revealing the bad news and leaving the crowd - which included the town's mayor - still watching the sky. For this reason, and as a result of a later incident involving wing walking on a plane leaving Southend Airport, Schofield chose Southend as one of his pet hates for the programme.
[edit] Theatre
To many people's surprise (but to enormous acclaim), he also elected to try theatre and took over the role of Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat from Jason Donovan on the West End stage. As a consequence he achieved a moderately placed single in the UK charts with Close Every Door. Another theatre production he was involved in was Dr Doolittle.
[edit] Trivia
- Phillip Schofield was rugby tackled by Fruitbat from Carter USM in front of millions of television viewers at the children's music awards TV show Smash Hits Poll Winners Party in 1991.
- He was infamous for going grey-haired at an early age and subsequently dyeing it black for a while. He is now proudly grey once again.
- One of Schofield's pet peeves is constantly being remembered as the companion of Gordon the Gopher (a puppet) from his Children's BBC and Going Live! days. To this day he is mentioned (and even occasionally makes the odd appearance) on Schofield's TV appearances, usually as a joke or novelty. When Schofield appeared on Room 101 Gordon was the first thing Schofield asked to be interred there. Possibly because of fond childhood memories, the audience took the side of the rodent.
- Schofield's choices for inclusion in Room 101 during his appearance were:
- Gordon the Gopher - Not included
- Rooks - Included
- Southend-on-Sea - Included
- Satellite navigation systems - Included
- Schofield was twice gunged on Noel's House Party.
- Schofield supports Cardiff City FC.
- Is an avid collector of telephones, guitars and golliwoggs [citation needed]
