Oludotun Davey Moore "Dotun" Adebayo (born 25 August 1959) is a British radio presenter, writer, and publisher. He is best known for his work on '' Up All Night'' on

BBC Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcast ...

, as well as the obituary programme ''Brief Lives''.

Early life

Oludotun "Dotun" Adebayo was born in

Lagos Lagos (Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the List of cities in Africa by population, second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national ca ...

, Nigeria, and moved to join his parents in England at the age of six. His younger brother

Diran Adebayo Oludiran "Diran" Adebayo FRSL (born 30 August 1968) is a British novelist, cultural critic and academic, best known for his tales of London and the lives of African diasporans. His work has been characterised by its interest in multiple cultura ...

is a novelist, and his nephew Tobi Adebayo-Rowling is a professional footballer. As a young boy, Adebayo joined the

National Youth Theatre The National Youth Theatre of Great Britain (NYT) is a youth theatre and registered charity in London. Its aim is to develop and nurture young people through creative arts and theatrical productions. Founded in 1956 as the world's first youth th ...

, where he starred in ''Killing Time'' by

Barrie Keeffe __NOTOC__ Barrie Colin Keeffe (31 October 1945 – 10 December 2019) was an English dramatist and screenwriter. Best known for his screenplay for the gangster classic, ''The Long Good Friday'' (1980), starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren, Keeff ...

, ''

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...

'' by

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

, and several other productions. Adebayo was educated at Woodlands Park Junior School in

Tottenham Tottenham () is a town in North London, England, within the London Borough of Haringey. It is located in the ceremonial county of Greater London. Tottenham is centred north-northeast of Charing Cross, bordering Edmonton to the north, Waltham ...

, where he was in the year below

Winston Silcott Winston Silcott (born 1959),Winston Silcott: An infamous past
(

Stationers' Company's Comprehensive School in Hornsey, North London, followed by

Stockholm University Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms universitet) is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, so ...

, where he studied Literature. While there, he had a reggae segment inside a Saturday-night radio programme on

Sveriges Radio P3 P3 (''Sveriges Radio P3'' or ''pe tre'') is a mainstream CHR-formatted station operated by Sweden's national publicly funded radio broadcasting organization Sveriges Radio. The P in P3 originally stood for Program (''Programme'') but today has no ...

. He then returned to the UK to study Philosophy at the

Wivenhoe Park Wivenhoe Park is a landscaped green space of more than at the eastern edge of Colchester, England. It is the site of Wivenhoe House, a four-star hotel, based in an eighteenth-century Grade II listed house. Wivenhoe House is also home to the Edg ...

campus of the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the an ...

. While studying at the University of Essex, and presenting two programmes on the student radio station, in 1987 Adebayo was elected President of the University of Essex Students' Union to serve in the 1987/1988 academic year. Standing as an independent, he defeated

Labour Students Labour Students is a student organisation within the Labour Party of the United Kingdom. It is a network of affiliated college and university clubs, known as Labour Clubs, who campaign in their campuses and communities for Labour's values of e ...

candidate Asad Rehman. Adebayo revealed during an episode of '' Up All Night'' that his middle names were "Davey Moore". His parents were boxing fans and had given him these middle names because the boxer Davey Moore had boxed and beaten British-Nigerian

Hogan Bassey Hogan "Kid" Bassey MBE MON (3 June 1932 – 26 January 1998) was a Nigerian-British boxer; he was the first man of Nigerian descent to become a world boxing champion. He was born Okon Asuquo Bassey on the banks of the Cross River, Creek Tow ...

a year earlier. He spoke about this during the show's "Virtual Jukebox" segment when the

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

song "

Who Killed Davey Moore "Who Killed Davey Moore" is a topical song written in 1963 by American folk singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. Though the song was not commercially released on Dylan's several studio albums in the 1960s, it was popular in his repertoire for live shows du ...

" had been selected by a listener.

Career

The American playwright

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...

chose Adebayo to play a small part in the world premiere of his last play, ''

The Red Devil Battery Sign ''The Red Devil Battery Sign'' is a three-act play by American writer Tennessee Williams. He copyrighted the text in 1975 for its premiere in Boston, but revised the play in 1979; that later version was published by New Directions in 1988. Syno ...

'', in which Adebayo acted opposite

Pierce Brosnan Pierce Brendan Brosnan (; born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor and film producer. He is best known as the fifth actor to play secret agent James Bond in the Bond film series, starring in four films from 1995 to 2002 (''GoldenEye'', ''Tomorrow ...

. Adebayo appeared in '' The Oblong Box'' at the age of eight, and Danish filmmaker

Lars Von Trier Lars von Trier (''né'' Trier; 30 April 1956) is a Danish filmmaker, actor, and lyricist. Having garnered a reputation as a highly ambitious, polarizing filmmaker, he has been the subject of several controversies: Cannes, in addition to nominat ...

's ''

The Element of Crime ''The Element of Crime'' ( da, Forbrydelsens Element) is a 1984 experimental neo-noir crime film co-written and directed by Lars von Trier. It is the first feature film directed by Trier and the first installment of the director's Europa trilogy ...

''. As well as claiming to have been the first black

Teddy boy The Teddy Boys or Teds were a mainly British youth subculture of the mid 1950s to mid 1960s who were interested in rock and roll and R&B music, wearing clothes partly inspired by the styles worn by dandies in the Edwardian period, which Savil ...

in London in his early teens, Adebayo also won a

Rotary Club Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. Its stated mission is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through hefellowship of business, profe ...

public-speaking award as a teenager, and worked for the BBC from the age of 12 on the radio programme ''Network Africa''. Around this same time, Adebayo nearly became the latest, 'Milky Bar Kid', only narrowly missing out on the part, owing to him not needing to wear glasses. Adebayo resigned as President of the University of Essex Students' Union within a few months to take up a job with ''

The Voice The Voice may refer to: Fictional entities * The Voice or Presence, a fictional representation of God in DC Comics * The Voice (''Dune''), a fictional ability in the ''Dune'' universe * The Voice, a character in the American TV series ''Cleo ...

'', Britain's main black newspaper, where he was music editor until 1991. His columns and articles have been published in ''

Pride Magazine ''Pride Magazine'' is a magazine targeting Black British, mixed-race, African and African-Caribbean women in the United Kingdom. This lifestyle magazine has been in publication since 1991. The magazine has a circulation of more than 30,000 copie ...

'' and the ''

New Nation ''New Nation'' was a weekly newspaper published in the UK for the Black British community. Launched in 1996, the newspaper was Britain's Number 1-selling black newspaper. The paper was published every Monday. ''New Nation'' was initially lau ...

'', as well as broadsheet and tabloid newspapers such as ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', ''

London Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'' and the ''

News of the World The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national Tabloid journalism#Red tops, red top Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling En ...

''. Some of these columns were compiled into books: ''Can I Have My Balls Back Please'' (2000) and its sequel ''Sperm Bandits'' (2002), the latter a humorous look at the phenomenon of

sperm theft Sperm theft, also known as unauthorized use of sperm, forced fatherhood, spermjacking or (a portmanteau of sperm and burgling), occurs when a man's semen is used, against his will or without his knowledge or consent, to inseminate a woman. It ...

. This led to a follow-up

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

docudrama ''Sperm Bandits''. He is working on his first novel, ''Promised Land'', an epic saga spanning 50 years in the lives of Britain's richest black family. In 1993, while appearing on

's ''The Devil's Advocate'' opposite presenter

Darcus Howe Leighton Rhett Radford "Darcus" Howe (26 February 1943 – 1 April 2017)"Civil ...

, he was spotted by GLR programme executive Gloria Abramov, who was looking for a new presenter for the ''Black London'' programme. His broadcasting work on

BBC London 94.9 BBC Radio London is the BBC's local radio station serving Greater London and its surrounding areas. The station broadcasts across the area and beyond, on the 94.9 FM frequency, DAB, Virgin Media channel 937, Sky channel 0152 (in the Lond ...

gave him the opportunity to present other programmes, such as the Saturday night

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

show, and he eventually "presented everything except travel!" On his half-week of the '' Up All Night'' show on

, he presents both the World Football Phone-In and the Virtual Jukebox: this was a replacement for his Virtual Bookshelf. Adebayo's television work includes writing and presenting the documentary ''White Girls Are Easy'' (for Channel 4), and the weekly show ''Heavy TV''. Adebayo founded the publishing company X Press, with Steve Pope, producing black fiction such as ''Baby Father'',

Victor Headley Victor Headley (born 1959) is a Jamaican-born British author. He is the author of the bestselling novel ''Yardie'' (1992), which gained cult status upon publication and "heralded a new wave of black British pulp fiction". Other books by Headley in ...

's ''

Yardie Yardie (or Yaadi) is a term often used, particularly within the Caribbean expatriate and Jamaican diaspora, to refer to people of Jamaican origin, though its exact meaning changes depending on context. The term is derived from the Jamaican pat ...

'' (which became the first black British best-seller when it was published in 1992), and ''Cop Killer'' (which gained instant notoriety when 200 bullets were sent out to the press to promote the title). He is also responsible for the Nia imprint of literary black fiction, including titles such as

J. California Cooper Joan Cooper (November 10, 1931 in Berkeley, California – September 20, 2014 in Seattle, Washington), known by her pen name, J. California Cooper, was an American playwright and author. She wrote 17 plays and was named Black Playwright of the Ye ...

's ''In Search of Satisfaction'', and the 20/20 imprint for current generic fiction such as the best-seller ''Curvy Lovebox''. Adebayo also published the comic magazine '' Skank''. Adebayo is co-founder of Colourtelly, Britain's first general-interest black internet television station. To save costs, Adebayo uses his own house as the studio. When it launched on 1 August 2007, he had the aim of attracting 6000 subscribers to break even. In September 2020, Adebayo became a co-presenter of ''On The Continent'' as part of the new Football Ramble Presents network, alongside

Andy Brassell Andy Brassell is an English writer and broadcaster. Brassell specialises in European football and works as a pundit across many forms of media for the likes of Talksport, the BBC, BT Sport, and ESPN as well as newspapers such as the Guardian, ...

Personal life

Adebayo is married to singer

Carroll Thompson Carroll Thompson is a British lovers rock singer, best known as the "Queen of Lovers Rock" Biography Thompson was born in England and is of Jamaican descent. Thompson undertook classical piano training on the piano and sang in school and chur ...

, and they have two daughters. He supports

Charlton Athletic Football Club Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in ...

. In October 1999, Adebayo was invited to

Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace () is a London royal residence and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. It ...

to meet

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

. Ten years later, he was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2009.

References

External links

''Dotun Adebayo''
(BBC Radio 5 Live)
''Dotun Adebayo''
(BBC Radio London)
''Brief Lives''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adebayo, Dotun 1960 births Living people Alumni of the University of Essex BBC Radio 5 Live presenters Black British radio presenters British public relations people British radio personalities English people of Yoruba descent English publishers (people) English writers Members of the Order of the British Empire National Youth Theatre members Nigerian emigrants to the United Kingdom Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom People educated at the Stationers' Company's School People from Tottenham Stockholm University alumni