Jon Holmes
Jon Holmes is a British comedian, writer, presenter and broadcaster. His work includes, for BBC Radio 4, The Naked Week, The Skewer, The Now Show, and Listen Against. He has also appeared on other music and spoken word radio, and on television.
Early life
Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Holmes was raised in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Holmes was adopted when he was aged one month. He attended Canterbury Christ Church College, where he graduated with a joint degree in English with radio, film and television. He became involved with university radio station C4 Radio and also wrote, directed and performed in various student revue shows; he became a presenter on Canterbury's local radio station KMFM Canterbury.Career
In 1997, Andy Hurst and Jon Holmes wrote and performed a radio sketch show Grievous Bodily Radio for BBC Radio 4.In 2000, the Jon & Andy Show on Power FM, won a gold Entertainment award at the 2000 Radio Academy Awards.
On Sunday nights, Holmes had a show on Power FM.
In January 2000, Holmes became one of the writers and producers of the BBC Radio 4 show Dead Ringers, series 1-11, and jointly won a gold Radio Academy Award. The show was adapted for BBC Two television, 2002-2007.
From 2001 to 2002, Virgin Radio transmitted a late-night show with Jon Holmes. Holmes was fired, after Virgin was fined a record £75,000 for several controversial stunts, including Holmes's "Swearing Radio Hangman for the Under-12s", in which he persuaded a nine-year-old girl to spell out and then repeat the phrase "soapy tit wank".
Holmes has written and appeared on BBC Radio 4, on The Now Show and The 99p Challenge. He worked on Gash and Time Trumpet. In 2006 he received his sixth Radio Academy Award for his work on Radio 4's Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive.
From 2006 to 2010, BBC Radio 7 broadcast and podcast 78 episodes of "Heroes—The Official Radio Show" with Jon Holmes, for the 77 episodes of the American drama series, on BBC Two, Heroes, every Saturday at 7:30 p.m..
In 2007, Holmes presented the Friday afternoon drivetime show on London talk station LBC, leaving in January 2008 when the station's new owners made the station more news-based.
In November 2007 he began a new Radio 4 series, Listen Against, which he co-presented with newsreader Alice Arnold. Series 2 began on Radio 4 in November 2008 and Series 3 was broadcast in the summer of 2010.
In April 2009, a BBC Radio 2 film panel show, I'm Spartacus.
Holmes co-wrote and co-presented The Day the Music Died alongside Andrew Collins.
Holmes had a show on BBC Radio 1.
From 2006 to 2012, Holmes presented a BBC Radio 6 Music show on Saturdays at 10am, with David Whitehead and producer Adam Hudson.
Holmes has appeared on the Radio 4 series, Loose Ends.
From January 2013, Holmes presented the XFM London breakfast show. A podcast to accompany the show was released on 11 January 2013. The show ran on weekdays between 6am and 10am. Holmes made the headlines again after a racist joke about the Irish at the Winter Olympics. Holmes was nominated for 'Presenter of the Year' at the 2015 Commercial Radio Awards.
From 21 March 2016 to 12 January 2018, Holmes was a weekdays afternoon 1-4pm, presenter on talkRADIO.
Following a pilot in 2019, since January 2020 Holmes has produced his BBC Radio 4 soundscape dark satire The Skewer.
In October 2011, Holmes substituted, with co-presenter Miranda Hart, for regular presenter Chris Evans on the Radio 2 show, The Chris Evans Breakfast Show, attracting criticism. The website Digital Spy reported that some listeners were unhappy with the quality of the programme. The BBC issued a statement in response saying, "Miranda Hart is one of the UK's best-loved comedians and BBC Radio 2 felt it appropriate to bring her warmth to its audience for a week. Jon Holmes is a highly experienced presenter from BBC Radio 6 Music BBC Radio 2 appreciates if their presentation wasn't to everyone's liking, but feels it's important to be able to bring new talent to its output and hopes its audience understands the importance of maintaining a breadth of content on the network."
In 2018, Holmes wrote, and appeared in, as 'Tim the producer', on Jeremy Vine: Agony Uncle, for BBC Radio 2. Lewis MacLeod portrayed "Jeremy Vine", as a 'behind the scenes look at what happens during The Jeremy Vine Show when the records are on'. The premise featured 'Jeremy' taking phone calls to give advice from various celebrities played by impressionists Terry Mynott and Jess Robinson. The show returned for a 2018 Christmas special.
From January 2013, Holmes hosted The XFM London Daily Breakfast Show, weekdays, alongside Matt Dyson, Dave Masterman and a series of interns.
From 26 September 2015, Holmes was relegated to the weekend breakfast show for the XFM relaunch as Radio X. Former Radio 1 Breakfast DJ Chris Moyles hosted the Radio X daily breakfast show. in direct competition with his Radio 1 successor Nick Grimshaw.
In August 2017, Holmes, on Saturday mornings, joined BBC Radio Kent, replacing James Whale, featuring live music from a session studio.
In January 2018, Holmes joined digital radio station Virgin Radio UK presenting the Sunday drivetime show. He left the station on Sunday 6 May 2018.
Television
As well as writing for television, Holmes co-wrote and appeared in 2009 Unwrapped, a review of the year for BBC Two but with entirely fabricated news stories with judicious use of re-edited news footage and video archive not dissimilar to Holmes's own Listen Against on Radio 44. The show aired at Christmas 2009.He appeared in Crackanory on the Dave Channel as well as 'Nick Tesla' in the controversial Channel 4 drama Ukip: The First 100 Days which imagined what it would be like if Ukip won the 2016 UK general election.
He co-wrote BBC1's The Impressions Show with Culshaw and Stephenson. The show was a big hit for Saturday nights and a second series was scheduled to air in autumn 2010. Holmes also co-writes Horrible Histories for BBC One, for which he won two BAFTAs in 2010 as part of the writing team.
Apart from the transfer of Radio 4's Dead Ringers, in 2002 Holmes co-presented the fifth series of The Eleven O'Clock Show on Channel 4 television with Sarah Alexander. He wrote for Graham Norton on his award-winning Channel 4 show V Graham Norton and co-presented BBC3's The State We're In, in which he was beaten up by the SAS. Holmes wrote and appeared in Gash, a nightly politics programme which was broadcast to coincide with the 2003 local elections and presented by Armando Iannucci. He also co-wrote Iannucci's Time Trumpet for BBC2.
In 2005, with Dead Ringerss Jon Culshaw, Holmes co-wrote and script edited ITV1's The Impressionable Jon Culshaw. He also played various roles in various sketches. The show was nominated for the Golden Rose of Montreux TV Award.
Selected other credits include Have I Got News for You, Mock the Week and The Harry Hill Show. He is also the voice of BBC Three's 7 Days and Crash Test Danny for the Discovery Channel.
He regularly appears on Sky News to preview the following morning's newspapers.
Other media
He has been a Sunday Times columnist and has written for The Guardian, The Times and the Radio Times, among others. He is now a travel writer for the Sunday Times.Holmes co-wrote Stephen Fry's script for the BAFTA Film Awards and has hosted the MOJO Awards and the Radio Production Awards.
In 2016 he hosted Arqiva Commercial Radio Awards.
Works
In 2007, Holmes's book, Status Quo and the Kangaroo, was published in the UK by Penguin and later published in Australia, Canada, USA, India and Russia.In September 2008, Holmes's paperback Rock Star Babylon was published in the UK. In 2008-2009, Holmes toured the UK, reading from his book Rock Star Babylon and in August 2009 played the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. In 2021, a number of Rock Star Babylon stories, had been adapted into a radio comedy show called Rockanory. The series is due to be broadcast by Absolute Radio and will feature the voices of Shaun Keaveny, Jon Culshaw and Jake Yapp. Holmes produced the series and has co-written it with Gareth Ceredig.
In 2009, Holmes co-wrote, with Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis, the book, The Now Show Book of World Records.
In 2009, Holmes co-wrote The History of the World Through Twitter.
In 2015, Holmes's comedy memoir, A Portrait of An Idiot As A Young Man was published.
Politics
On 15 September 2010, Holmes, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK.Awards
Holmes has won two BAFTAs, nine Gold Sony Radio Awards, two British Comedy Awards, a Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Radio Show.Holmes was made a Distinguished Supporter of Humanists UK.
Nominations
He was nominated for a Rose D'or for his work on The Impressionable Jon Culshaw, for ITV1.He was nominated for a Channel 4 Political Award, for The Now Show.
He was nominated for two BAFTAs.
He was nominated for a Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award.