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Timothy Luke Mallett (born 18 October 1955) is an English TV presenter, broadcaster, and artist. He is known for his striking visual style, colourful glasses, loud shirts, and giant pink foam
mallet, known as "Mallett's Mallet", as well as his "utterly brilliant!" and "blaaah!"
catchphrase
A catchphrase (alternatively spelled catch phrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass ...
s.
Career
Radio
Mallett was born in
Marple Marple may refer to:
Places
* Marple, Greater Manchester, a town close to Stockport, in England
** Marple Bridge, a village within the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, in Greater Manchester
** Marple railway station in Marple, Greater Manches ...
,
Cheshire. His media career started while he was a student at the
University of Warwick where he worked on the
student radio
Campus radio (also known as college radio, university radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively created or produced ...
station,
Radio Warwick. After graduating with a degree in History he started working at
BBC Radio Oxford
BBC Radio Oxford is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Oxfordshire.
It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios in the Summertown area of Oxford.
According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audienc ...
. He later moved to Centre Radio (now
Leicester Sound
Leicester Sound was an Independent Local Radio station which broadcast to Leicestershire. The station merged with two other East Midlands stations, Trent FM and Ram FM to form Capital FM East Midlands (part of Global's Capital FM Network) on M ...
) as the station's launch presenter. He also presented on
Radio Luxembourg
Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg).
The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earlies ...
and
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
's
Piccadilly Radio
Greatest Hits Radio Manchester & The North West is an Independent Local Radio station based in Manchester, England, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Greatest Hits Radio Network. It broadcasts to Greater Manchester and North West Eng ...
.
The programme he hosted at Piccadilly was ''Timmy on the Tranny'', a weekday evening show that ran from 8.00pm–11.00pm and took its name from Mallett's lunchtime and later afternoon shows on Radio Oxford. Among Mallett's team of helpers were
Chris Evans (known as 'Nobby Nolevel'),
Andy Bird (who played the pirate radio character 'Radio Diggle') and Karen Walsh (the original 'Aunty Boney kneecaps'). This led to Mallett co-presenting the Manchester-based
BBC2 youth music show ''Oxford Road Show'' for a year in 1984.
Mallett won two
Radio Academy Awards for Best Local Radio presenter (1984) and Best pop music show (1986).
Television
In 1983, he presented ''Summer Run'' on Saturday mornings for the new breakfast television station,
TV-am
TV-am was a TV company that broadcast the ITV franchise for breakfast television in the United Kingdom from 1 February 1983 until 31 December 1992. The station was the UK's first national operator of a commercial breakfast television franchis ...
. The following year he became a presenter of ''
Wide Awake Club'', a new Saturday morning children's programme on TV-am, with co-presenters
Michaela Strachan, James Baker, Arabella Warner and
Tommy Boyd
Timothy Leslie Boyd (born 14 December 1952), better known as Tommy Boyd, is a British radio presenter.
Television
From 1977 to 1980, Boyd was co-presenter of the ITV children's magazine programme ''Magpie'' replacing Douglas Rae. In 1981, ...
. Future actor
Mike Myers
Michael John Myers OC (born May 25, 1963) is a Canadian actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. His accolades include seven MTV Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2002, he was awarded a star on the Hollywoo ...
also had a minor role alongside
Neil Mullarkey
Neil Mullarkey is an English actor, writer and comedian.
Early life and education
From 1972—1979, Mullarkey was educated at Kingston Grammar School, an independent school for boys (now coeducational), in Kingston upon Thames, followed by Rob ...
. TV-am found itself lacking a school holidays programme after
Roland Rat
Roland Rat is a British television puppet character. He was created, operated and voiced by David Claridge, who had previously designed and operated Mooncat, a puppet in the Children's ITV television programme '' Get Up and Go!'' Claridge work ...
moved to the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, and he was offered the chance to present it. The replacement, a spin-off of ''Wide Awake Club'', was called ''
Wacaday
''Wacaday'' is a children's television series in the United Kingdom that ran in TV-am's school-holidays slot from October 1985 until 1992, in an 8:50-9:25 a.m. slot, and was hosted by Timmy Mallett.
History
''Wacaday'' was introduced w ...
'' (based on the addition of 'aday' to the initials 'WAC' for ''Wide Awake Club'') and began broadcasting in 1985.
In the Wide Awake Club contestants were hit over the head by his famed mallet for getting answers wrong. In later years, a talking mini-version of the mallet called "Pinky Punky" was introduced (the name chosen after Mallett asked viewers to write in with their ideas) and soon became one of Mallett's established sidekicks along with Magic, his pet
cockatiel. ''Wacaday'' ended in 1992 when TV-am lost its franchise to broadcast.
Since then, Mallett has run his own production company, Brilliant TV.
In 1993, Mallett starred in
The Children's Channel
The Children's Channel, also known as TCC, was a British-based pan-European children's television channel in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which was owned by Flextech in London, England, UK. It began broadcasting on the original Eutelsat ...
's ''Around the World in 80 seconds'' as Captain Everything.
From 1997 until 2002, he acted in ''
Timmy Towers
Timmy Towers is a children's television series produced by Brilliant TV that was first shown in 1997. The programme starred Timmy Mallett as himself, Mark Speight as the Abominable No Man, Alex Lovell
Alexandra "Alex" Lovell (born 28 Marc ...
'', for
CITV
CITV (short for Children's ITV, also known as the CITV Channel) is a British free-to-air children's television channel owned by ITV plc. It broadcasts content from the CITV archive and acquisitions, every day from 6 am to 9 pm which ...
.
Other
In 2002, Mallett made
West Ham United F.C. agree to stop selling copies of their mascot, Herbie the Hammer, in their club shop after he complained that it looked too similar to Pinky Punky. West Ham United withdrew the item.
In 2004 he was a stand-in contestant for the
ITV1
ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the Channel 3 public broadcast service across all of the United Kingdom except for t ...
jungle-based reality series ''
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!''. In 2008 he entered the show as a full contestant.
In 2008, Mallett appeared on ''
Big Brother's Little Brother
This is a complete list of shows about and relating to '' Big Brother UK'' and '' Celebrity Big Brother''. The civilian edition ran from 2000 to 2018 and the celebrity edition ran from 2001 to 2018.
''Big Brother''
''Big Brother'' was a daily s ...
''.
In September 2008, Mallett appeared on the
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
politics show ''
This Week'' talking about being positive when things get tough.
In November 2008, Mallett appeared in the
eighth series of ''
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!''. He entered the show by being captured in an oversized net and imprisoned in jungle jail. The celebrities were given an option to trade their possessions for him and
David Van Day to enter. They refused. On 30 November 2008, Mallett was the fourth contestant eliminated from the show after being placed in the bottom two in the public voting and taking part in a play-off bush tucker eating trial with
Brian Paddick.
Music
With producers
Nigel Wright and
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Mallett formed the band Bombalurina, named after a
character in Lloyd Webber's musical ''
Cats''. Along with female vocalists and dancers Dawn Andrews and Annie Dunkley, they released a cover of the single "
Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini". It reached number one in the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
in August 1990.
Follow up single "Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Backseat" reached number 18 in the UK in December 1990.
The Bombalurina album ''Huggin' And A Kissin with 14 tracks was released in December 1990.
Ditching the Bombalurina name, but again working with producer Nigel Wright, Mallett released a cover of
Kenny's "The Bump" under the name M.C. Mallett in 1991. This failed to chart.
For "Tommy's Campaign", Mallett recorded "The Laughing Policeman" with producer
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, and musician. He was commonly referred to as the " Fifth Beatle" because of his extensive involvement in each of the ...
in 1991.
Under the name Del Costa, Mallett released a megamix version of "Hot Hot Hot" in summer 1992.
In 2008, Mallett featured in
Skepta's video "Rolex Sweep" and accompanied Skepta to the
MOBO
The MOBO Awards (Music of Black Origin, also known as the MOBOs) are an annual British music award presentation honouring achievements in " music of black origin", including hip hop, grime, UK Drill, R&B, soul, reggae, jazz, gospel, and ...
nominations.
In 2013, Mallett recorded
Gilbert O'Sullivan
Raymond Edward "Gilbert" O'Sullivan (born 1 December 1946) is an Irish singer-songwriter who achieved his most significant success during the early 1970s with hits including "Alone Again (Naturally)", " Clair", and "Get Down".
O'Sullivan's so ...
's hit "Ooh-Wakka-Doo-Wakka-Day".
Mallett's "Summer Holiday" video was made in 2014.
Stage shows
Mallett has appeared in
pantomime
Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking ...
in
Lewisham theatre, Cliffs Pavilion
Southend
Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, east of central London. It is bordered ...
, Hexagon
Reading, Derngate
Northampton, Arena
St Albans, Wyvern
Swindon, Forum
Billingham
Billingham is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, England. The town is on the north side of the River Tees and is governed by Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council. The settlement had previously formed i ...
, Pavilion
Worthing
Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Ho ...
, Grand Pavilion
Porthcawl
Porthcawl (, ) is a town and community on the south coast of Wales in the county borough of Bridgend, west of the capital city, Cardiff and southeast of Swansea. Historically part of Glamorgan and situated on a low limestone headland on the S ...
, Playhouse
Weston-super-Mare
Weston-super-Mare, also known simply as Weston, is a seaside town in North Somerset, England. It lies by the Bristol Channel south-west of Bristol between Worlebury Hill and Bleadon Hill. It includes the suburbs of Mead Vale, Milton, Oldmix ...
and Theatre Royal
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
.
In December 2016, he appeared in ''Jack and the Beanstalk'' at Theatre Royal Windsor.
While staying at
Hartlepool, Mallet rescued a woman from the marina in December 2001.
He toured the
Pontins
Pontins is a British company operating holiday parks in the UK, founded in 1946 by Fred Pontin. Since 2011, it has been owned by Britannia Hotels.
Pontins specialises in offering half-board and self-catering holidays featuring entertainment ...
holiday camps with the "Utterly Brilliant Timmy Mallett show" in 2014.
He toured Park Holidays UK's sites doing the Timmy Mallett show 2016.
Art
Mallett is an
oil painter and
acrylic artist whose work sells in galleries across UK and Europe. His work is distributed and published in
limited editions by De Montfort Fine Art and Buckingham Fine Art
In 2002, he painted 50 portraits for the Queen's jubilee including
Wendy Craig,
Jim Rosenthal,
Lorraine Kelly,
Ulrika Jonsson and
Sir Clive Woodward.
In 2012, Mallett won the Best up and coming artist
Fine Art Trade Guild The Fine Art Trade Guild is an organisation representing the fine art and framing industry. Based in London, the Guild operates primarily in the United Kingdom and Ireland, also in a smaller capacity in New Zealand.
History
The first fine art tra ...
.
In 2012, Mallett painted a telephone box in Windsor with likenesses of the Queen, Prince Harry and Catherine the Duchess of Cambridge.
In the summer of 2018, Mallett discovered and painted his father's secret Galloway bridge scene from September 1966.
Selected television programmes
* ''
Oxford Road Show
''Oxford Road Show'' is a music show that aired on BBC2 from 16 January 1981 to 29 March 1985. It was broadcast from the BBC's New Broadcasting House in Oxford Road, Manchester. The show featured live music, pop music news and competitions an ...
'' (1984)
* ''
Wide Awake Club'' (1984–1988)
* ''
Wacaday
''Wacaday'' is a children's television series in the United Kingdom that ran in TV-am's school-holidays slot from October 1985 until 1992, in an 8:50-9:25 a.m. slot, and was hosted by Timmy Mallett.
History
''Wacaday'' was introduced w ...
'' (1985–1992)
* ''Utterly Brilliant'' (1989–1991)
* ''Questions'' (1990) BBC Two education series
* ''Around the World in 80 Seconds'' (1993–1994)
* ''Way to Go'' (1996–1997)
* ''
Timmy Towers
Timmy Towers is a children's television series produced by Brilliant TV that was first shown in 1997. The programme starred Timmy Mallett as himself, Mark Speight as the Abominable No Man, Alex Lovell
Alexandra "Alex" Lovell (born 28 Marc ...
'' (1997–2002)
* ''
The Beeps'' (2007)
* ''
I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!'' (2008 series)
Sport
Mallett is a supporter of
Oxford United F.C. and
Maidenhead United.
Mallett is a keen cyclist.
He rode through Northern Ireland in May 2015, Lincolnshire in summer 2015 and through Cumbria in May 2016.
In spring 2018, Mallett cycled alone from home in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
through
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
and
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
along the pilgrimage route, the
Camino de Santiago to
Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of S ...
Finisterre and back, a distance of over 4000 km, inspired by his older brother Martin with
Downs syndrome
Down syndrome or Down's syndrome, also known as trisomy 21, is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. It is usually associated with physical growth delays, mild to moderate intellectual dis ...
.
The story forms the basis for his memoirs 'Utterly Brilliant My life's Journey' published in 2020 by
SPCK which also includes some of the paintings produced on this adventure.
References
External links
*
Timmy Mallett official sitetimmymallett.co.uk
Mallett's Palette official art siteMallettspalette.co.uk
Wacaday TV show siteWacaday.co.uk
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mallett, Timmy
1955 births
Alumni of the University of Warwick
English radio DJs
English television presenters
English artists
People from Marple, Greater Manchester
Living people
Radio Luxembourg (English) presenters
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series) participants