Chris Evans (presenter)

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Chris Evans (presenter) bigraphy, stories - British DJ and TV presenter

Chris Evans (presenter) : biography

1 April 1966 –

Christopher James Evans (born 1 April 1966) is an English presenter, businessman and producer for radio and television.

He started working for Manchester Piccadilly Radio as a teenager, before moving to London as a presenter for the BBC and then Channel 4 television, where The Big Breakfast made him a star. Soon he was able to dictate highly favourable terms, allowing him to broadcast on competing radio and TV stations. Slots like Radio 1 Breakfast Show and TFI Friday provided an appealing mix of celebrity interviews, music and comic games, delivered in an irreverent style that attracted complaints and higher ratings in equal measure. By 2000 he was the UK’s highest paid entertainer, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

In 2005, he started a new career on Radio 2, involving the long-running Drivetime programme, as well as a new breakfast show. More recent work for BBC1 and Channel 4 have not achieved the success of his earlier ventures.

Early life

Evans was born in 1966, in Warrington, Lancashire, England, the youngest child of bookmaker and health authority wages clerk Martin Joseph Evans (1921–1979),Births, Marriages & Deaths Index, England and Wales and Minnie Beardsall, who managed a corner shop. His siblings are brother David (born 1953) and sister Diane (born 1963). He started his schooling at St Margaret’s Church of England Infants and Junior School, and later the Junior School in Orford, Warrington. Evans’ father and both paternal uncles died of colorectal cancer.The One Show, 17 May 2012 Evans’ mother is a breast cancer survivor.This Morning, 17 April 2013

Evans passed the 11 plus exam and started at Boteler Grammar School, Warrington. After the death of his father, the 13-year-old Evans took part-time work at an outlet of T. J. & B. McLoughlin’s newsagent–tobacconist in Woolston, and ran an alternative tuck-shop at Padgate High School, which was a comprehensive school he attended for the final three years of his secondary education. Evans left secondary school at age 16 after moving into the sixth form, and he then had a number of dead-end jobs in and around Warrington, including a private detective agency and notoriously as a "Tarzan-ogram."

Shows hosted

The following is a list of the main shows Evans has presented:

Television

  • TV Mayhem – ITV, 1991
  • The Big Breakfast – Channel 4, 1992–1994
  • Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush – Channel 4, 1994–1995
  • TFI Friday – Channel 4, 1996–1999 (show ended in 2000 with weekly guest presenters)
  • OFI Sunday – ITV, 2005
  • The One Show – BBC 1, August 2010–present (replacement only on Friday)
  • Famous and Fearless – Channel 4 2011

Radio

  • Piccadilly Radio, Saturday afternoons & weekday evenings (1986–1987)
  • BBC GLR, Saturday afternoons, 3–5 pm (1990)
  • BBC GLR, The Greenhouse, Mondays–Thursdays, 7:30–10 pm (1990)
  • BBC GLR, Round at Chris’s, Saturdays, 10 am – 1 pm (1991–1993)
  • BBC Radio 1, Too Much Gravy, Sundays, 2:30 pm – 4 pm (1992)
  • Virgin Radio, Saturday mornings, 10 am – 1 pm (1993)
  • BBC Radio 1, Weekday Breakfast Show, 6:30–9 am (1995–1997)
  • Virgin Radio, Weekday Breakfast Show, 6–10 am (1997–2001)
  • BBC Radio 2, Good Friday afternoon, 2–5 pm (2005)
  • BBC Radio 2, Easter Monday afternoon, 2–5 pm (2005)
  • BBC Radio 2, May Day Bank Holiday, 2–5 pm (2005)
  • BBC Radio 2, Whitsun Bank Holiday, 2–5 pm (2005)
  • BBC Radio 2, Saturday afternoons, 2–5 pm (2005–2006)
  • BBC Radio 2, Weekday Drivetime Show, 5–7 pm (2006–24 December 2009)
  • BBC Radio 2, Weekday Breakfast Show, 7:00–9:30 am (11 January 2010 – 8 October 2010) 6:30–9:30 am (From 11 October 2010)

Career

Early career

Evans began his professional career at Manchester Piccadilly Radio in 1983, where he had previously had unpaid school-boy work. Until 1984 Evans had three jobs: as an assistant to Timmy Mallett, and playing a character on his show called ‘Nobby Nolevel’ (‘No ‘O’ Level’); acting as a disc jockey in the evenings at local pubs when he was not at Piccadilly Radio; and still working at the newsagents, opening up daily at 5 am to sort out the newspaper deliveries.