Rowland J. Rivron[1] (born 1958[1] in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire[1]), a British comedian, musician, writer, and television presenter.[2]
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Rivron was brought up in Hillingdon, West London and attended Abbotsfield Secondary School. He has two brothers, Richard and Raymond.[3]
He and his wife Monica, née Appleby, have three children. The couple are avid caravanners, and Monica is the author of The Caravan Cookbook.
Rivron first came to fame through his appearances as the comedy character of "Dr Martin Scrote" on the Jonathan Ross chat show The Last Resort, before appearing on Night Network's Bunker Show. He developed this into a series for Channel 4 called Set of Six about Dr Scrote and his five brothers. In 1989 he starred with Jools Holland in the short-lived series The Groovy Fellers. In the early 1990s he presented his own chat show, Rivron, in which the entire set floated in the River Thames. Rowland also made a memorable appearance in the children's schools BBC TV Series Cats' Eyes.
Rivron toured briefly, playing drums for Transvision Vamp in the late 80s. Rivron played drums on Fat Les's 1998 single "Vindaloo". As one half of the band "Raw Sex" (with Simon Brint), he also featured regularly on BBC TV's French and Saunders show and wrote the theme tune for LWT drama London's Burning.
Rivron featured on drums in the "Sophisticated Fool" song[4] and "All We've Got To Do Is..." song [5] from A Bit of Fry and Laurie, also on BBC TV.[6] He was a contributing writer to Rhythm, a UK drumming magazine, and is a regular guest on Jools Holland's BBC shows,[7] in which he once demonstrated a square snare drum made by Robert Daniels. Rivron appeared on the children's TV program Blue Peter at age 15, playing the drums.[8]
For eighteen months Rivron drummed for Jools Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra.[9]
In recent years, Rivron has regularly presented television shows such as Holiday and Summer Holiday. Rowland Rivron presented the comedy BBC Radio 2 shows Jammin' & Radio Rivron, and starred in the Channel 5 programme Trust Me - I'm A Holiday Rep. He also co-presented the Saturday breakfast show on BBC London 94.9 Rivron also appeared on Richard & Judy's New Position as the celebrity barman.
He also presented the video to promote One Foot in the Grave for the title of BBC Britain's Best Sitcom in 2004.
Rivron acted as a team captain on Question of TV (all on BBC1), and was a panellist on the first episode of Shooting Stars (BBC2). A special celebrity edition of the show "Incredible Games" was aired at the end of it's first season with Philippa Forrester and Keith Chegwin appearing alongside Rowland as the contestants in place of the usual kids taking part (who were shown to be tied up before the games started). In 2006, Rowland was part of Channel 4's Come Dine With Me. He was the first celebrity to be voted out on 2007's edition of Comic Relief does Fame Academy.
In 1994, Rivron appeared in the BBC children's science programme Cats' Eyes.
In 2005, he appeared in the BBC1 sitcom Blessed.
In October 2007, Rivron "waded into an unholy row" over plans for a mobile phone mast planned for the tower of his local church in North London. After joining the mass protest, he explained: "It's not really needed... In the Good Book they turned water into wine and now they're turning masts into misery". The TV star was received enthusiastically by his fellow protesters, with campaigner Paul Barnard commenting: "We were very grateful to Rowland Rivron for his support and he managed to cheer people up with his quips and jokes".[10]