Peter Levy (presenter)

Peter Levy
Peter Levy
Born	(1955-09-05) 5 September 1955 Farnborough, Kent, England
Occupation	Television and radio presenter
Website	BBC Presenter Profile

Peter Levy (born 5 September 1955 in London) is a former commercial radio and current BBC television and occasional radio presenter.

Since November 2002, he has been the weekday presenter of the BBC regional news programme Look North.^[1] The programme is broadcast from the BBC's Kingston-upon-Hull studios to the East Riding of Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire areas.

Early life

Levy was born in Farnborough, Kent, England, but attended a secondary modern school in Truro, Cornwall. He did not do well at school, and by his own admission passed few, if any, exams. Levy first came to Yorkshire in his late teens. He was an actor in his teenage years, when he essentially 'fled' home (and Cornwall) to live in London, having secured small roles in shows such as Dixon of Dock Green, Man About the House, Coronation Street, The Mike Yarwood Show and Z-Cars.^[2]

Career

Radio

Although wanting to become an airline pilot when younger (he still enjoys flying), Levy was a disc jockey at Bradford's Pennine Radio (now The Pulse of West Yorkshire) from its launch in 1975 – having been hired by the then television journalist and later Member of Parliament Austin Mitchell. He became a presenter at Liverpool's Radio City in the 1970s^[1], starting on the afternoon show before progressing to the drive time slot.

Radio Humberside

From 10 November 2008, he took over the Soapbox slot on BBC Radio Humberside from Blair Jacobs, with a programme from 12 – 2 p.m. called The Peter Levy Show.^[3] At 1.55 p.m. each programme, he chatted to Paul Hudson.^[4] The programme was also broadcast on BBC Radio Lincolnshire. The programme finished in August 2014.

Shortly after the death of the now disgraced presenter Jimmy Savile in October 2011, Levy posted a message on Twitter stating that he was 'gutted' and that he had last seen him only six weeks prior to his death. He went onto describe him as a 'genuine guy'.^[5] The post has since been removed. Prior to this Levy had interviewed Savile on his radio show in March 2011.^[6] Following the damning revelations surrounding Savile in October 2012, Levy presented a number of radio programmes about the late DJ,^[7][8][9] including one in which he spoke with Mark Williams-Thomas, the investigative journalist who initially examined claims of child sexual abuse by Savile, leading to widespread media coverage.^[10]

Television

He originally pursued an acting career and was a minor character in Last Of The Summer Wine. He was then involved in local radio in the south of England before moving to Leeds to co-present BBC Look North.^[11]

He moved to Leeds-based Radio Aire, and then, in January 1987, to the BBC, eventually having a lunchtime show^[12] at BBC Radio Leeds. At this time he started as a regular stand-in presenter for the Leeds edition of Look North, always doing the breakfast bulletins. From between 1992 and 1993, Levy presented a BBC Two series entitled Famous Faces, Favourite Places in which he met well-known individuals who would revisit places of interest. During the programme he met individuals such as John Godber, Fred Trueman and Kathy Staff.^[13][14][15]

Look North was broadcast across the whole of the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire region at the time Levy started to work on it. He became the regular breakfast and lunchtime presenter of the programme in the mid-1990s. When the BBC split the region into two, Levy moved to present the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire edition from studios in Hull full-time from 11 November 2002.

In May 2005, a strike held by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) saw 15,000 journalists and technicians leave their posts in what was seen as one of the biggest walkouts in the BBC's history. NUJ members in Kingston-upon-Hull estimated that only a quarter of the 120-strong workforce, including Look North presenter Peter Levy, crossed the picket lines at the city's BBC centre at Queen's Court.^[16]

Levy's on-screen rapport with weatherman Paul Hudson has made him a popular local figure. The duo visited shopping centres around the region and met the public as part of the 2006 Look North Sofa Tour, this was repeated in 2009. The pair have made public appearances as part of a campaign in the East Riding of Yorkshire's libraries concerning reading among the under 11s. Levy made reference to this campaign on his radio show saying he could not read properly until he was ten and this is why he is passionate about campaigns such as this.^[17]

Appearances

Levy has appeared in a Last of the Summer Wine episode called "The Man Who Invented Yorkshire Funny Stuff". He was also mentioned in episode 6 of series 1 of The League of Gentlemen.^[18] In 2012, Levy agreed in principle to make a cameo appearance in the upcoming British film, Dead Lies. He has also appeared in the comedy show Still Open All Hours.

In 2012, Levy opened the Beverley Food Festival along with the Mayor of Beverley, Margaret Pinder; he is a supporter of the Driffield Show and other country events.^[19] Levy owns five cows^[20] and keeps them, for part of the year, on Beverley Westwood, an area of common land where many people keep livestock during the summer months.

Personal life

Levy lives in Hull^[21] and says "Because it’s such a close community in Hull, you can't really step out without being spotted. It is a little bit like being in a goldfish bowl. I'm a pretty shy person when it comes down to it, so it did take some getting used to, but the people of Hull are incredibly warm and friendly so it’s not really a chore."^[22] He is very protective of his adopted home, and once said live on air that the man who wrote the book Crap Towns (a book that had Hull as one of the "crappest") was an idiot and everyone who had been to Hull knew it was a "lovely city".

He regularly visits Cornwall, where his mother lives – it is here he indulges his love of bodyboarding and suggest he is "probably the oldest surfer in town."^[4]

References

External links

• Peter Levy on IMDb