Bill Buckley (radio presenter)
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| Bill Buckley | |
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| Birth name | William Buckley |
| Born | 8 January 1959 Birmingham, UK |
| Show | 'Bill Buckley' |
| Station(s) | LBC 97.3 |
| Time slot | 1 - 5am GMT Saturday, Sunday, Monday |
| Style | Talk Radio/Phone-in |
| Country | England |
| Previous show(s) | BBC Southern Counties Radio |
| Website | billbuckley.net |
Bill Buckley (William Buckley, Born January 8, 1959 in Birmingham, United Kingdom) is a former That's Life! co-presenter and television personality, who is currently a presenter on London talk radio station LBC 97.3.
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[edit] Career
Bill’s big broadcasting break came in 1982. While working as a newspaper reporter in his native West midlands, he was chosen from thousands of hopefuls to present the celebrated consumer programme, That’s Life, on BBC1 with Esther Rantzen. His mother had entered him for the job without his knowing.
After three years, he left to become a reporter for the BBC’s Holiday Programme, and spent the next six years travelling the world. Other TV appearances include Call My Bluff, Blankety Blank, All Star Secrets, Songs of Praise, Children in Need, and a huge variety of regional work in the south for Meridian Television on subjects as diverse as consumer affairs, politics and amateur film-making.
From 1989, he has also presented daily radio shows for numerous commercial and BBC stations in the South, London and Manchester.
Bill’s acting experience includes playing Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at Leatherhead. He also toured in the black comedy Widow’s Weeds, and starred in numerous pantomimes. The Christmas before last, for example, he played King in Jack and the Beanstalk at the Theatre Royal, Brighton with 60s icon Twiggy and Peak Practice’s Simon Shepherd.
Bill was senior continuity announcer for Channel 5 Television from its launch for five-and-a-half years. His irreverent style proved influential throughout the industry. He is particularly well remembered by many for his wonderfully camp commentary over the closing credits of the channel's late-night/early-morning run of Prisoner: Cell Block H.
Bill has also written a hit song. He provided both the words and music for Su Pollard’s number two hit single, Starting Together. Back to the present and, on top of his radio commitments, Bill regularly reviews the national Press on “Breakfast” on BBC2, BBC News 24 and Sky News.
In an age of media mediocrity, Bill Buckley remains as one of Britain's most amiable and original broadcasters.
[edit] LBC Radio Show
Bill’s voice should be particularly familiar to LBC 97.3’s listeners because he has filled in for many of the station’s presenters for several years now. He also has his own show every Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning from 1.00 until 5.00am. (Although throughout 2006, he also filled in for the weekday overnight presenter(s) on many occasions.)
Bill's presenting style is genial and relaxed. Unlike many other presenters, who prefer to keep the majority of their personal lives separate from their shows, Bill often shares what has been happening in his personal life (or at very least selected highlights of it), and typically opens his show with a lengthy monologue update of what he has been up to. One particular saga that listeners followed with him, was his meeting of an American man identified as Harry or H McC, and Bill's whirlwind romance with him (Bill is openly gay), including a much anticipated trip to the States to visit him, and H McC eventually calling the relationship off.
Bill is notable for enjoying 'singalongs' with listeners who call in, having a broad knowledge of contemporary and classical music. Indeed, the show is introduced by Level 42's hit single, 'Something About You'. Bill's show often delves nostalgically into the recent past - for example, reminding listeners of confectionery and beverages of old; indeed, cooking is a common and well-liked theme of his show. He is well-known for his pernickety use of correct grammar and will often jump onto any mistake a caller makes. Regular features of his programme include 'caption contests': competitions to come up with the best headline for an interesting newspaper story. There are also joke competitions, including 'Knock, Knock', 'Doctor, Doctor', 'A man walks into a pub...' and 'What do you call a...'; and finally poetry and other word-based competitions, including limericks, acrostics, clerihews, haikus, recent addition "Definitials" (one word-per-line acrostics, with the title "borrowed" from a similar Radio Times competition), and a number of other word-play games ("Cockney Rhyming Slang for 2007", and "Celebrity Gravestones", being just two such examples).
As well as being sometimes nicknamed "Ten Pantos" by regular contributors to his show (see 'Pantomime' section), Bill has also more recently been occasionally nicknamed "Marmite" by some listeners, in response to how people either love or loathe him and his many word-based competitions, just as people love or loathe Marmite.
Bill leaves his mobile phone on, primarily to use the predictive text function to decrypt some contributors wrongly worded texts. The phone also gives off a loud cockrel sound when a text is received, giving Bill scope for many innuendos, with the catchphrase "Ooh, pardon my cock!".
[edit] Come Dine With Me
In September 2005, Bill was seen for a whole week on Channel 4, competing in the reality cookery and entertainment show, Come Dine With Me. Bill had originally applied for the second series of Gordon Ramsay's 'Hell's Kitchen', but his details were passed onto the production team behind Come Dine With Me - and Bill found himself the surprise celebrity participant in this programme. Bill was characteristically amiable and mild-mannered on Come Dine With Me, in contrast to some rather irascible fellow contestants. Most of all, though, it was his cookery which led him to victory - something he has acknowledged with typical modesty. He has previously cooked on the Carlton Food Network and live on Channel 5 on Open House with Gloria Hunniford. He has been cookery editor of a magazine and last year was elected to the prestigious Guild of Food Writers. Bill is a near-professional chef, and says that the one thing he would salvage in a fire would be his treasured 'recipe scrapbook'.
[edit] Ann Maurice's Interior Rivalry
In early 2007, Bill took part in Five's house makeover contest Ann Maurice's Interior Rivalry, after competing in a previous series. The twelve contestants were split into teams of four, and each team's first task was to make over a living room. However, Bill became very unhappy with the working conditions (which included killing cockroaches), and particularly with the over-night living and sleeping conditions. When asked by Ann at the end of the task which member of his team he felt could have given more, Bill deflatedly named himself. He was one of the contestants dropped from the next round. After returning to his LBC show after filming, Bill admitted to his listeners that he was very unhappy about the whole experience, and vowed to not mention the programme so nobody would see it. However, a few days before the programme was broadcast, on Thursday 23rd March, at 8pm on Five, one of Bill's regular callers alerted him on air that it was about to be shown. Bill claimed to be very embarrased and nervous about the whole thing. He comforted himself with the comment from a taxi driver, who drove him home after he was dropped from the programme, who, after Bill had told him what the programme was, commented "Don't worry, it's only on Channel 5, no-one will see it anyway!!" Ironically, a few years previously, Bill had been the senior continuity announcer at the station. No mention of this was given in the programme.
[edit] Pantomime
Nicknamed 'Ten Pantos' by LBC fans, Bill has appeared in a number of shows. Panto has allowed him to shine both as an actor and vocalist. Bill's love of performing in panto is clear from a diary entry during his stint in Cinderella at the Hawth in Crawley, in December 2004:
"Time flies when you're being frozen by fairy magic, yanking false legs from scheming ugly sisters and waltzing at royal balls in a powdered wig."
[edit] Trivia
- Bill shares his birthdate with David Bowie, Shirley Bassey, Stephen Hawking and Elvis Presley.
- Bill appeared as an extra in the popular long running soap Crossroads. His only spoken words - all two of them - "Yeah, sure" - were to
'Kevin Brownlow'. In 1981 when the protagonist character 'Meg Richardson' was axed, Bill released a record called 'Meg Is Magic' in support of her.
- Although not known to each other, Bill also shares a path of destiny with Carol Vorderman. In the Spring/early Summer of 1982, both Carol's mother and Bill's mother had noted Press advertisements for presenters new to television. Without hesitation both mothers sent in applications on their behalf. Carol and Bill were unaware of this until they had been chosen from thousands of hopefuls, Bill to present That's Life, Carol to show off her maths genius on Countdown.
- One of Bill's biggest fears is pigeons. He claims that he can't stand them when they flap up around him.
