Jonathan Randal Vaughan (born 16 July 1966) is an English television and radio presenter and a
film critic
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outl ...
. He was the main presenter of ''
Capital Breakfast
''Capital Breakfast with Roman Kemp'' is a British national breakfast radio show on Capital. The show is broadcast from 6am to 10am each weekday. '' alongside
Lisa Snowdon
Lisa Snowdon
7 May 2001, ''People'' (born Lisa Snawdon on 23 January 1972) is an English television an ...
on
95.8 Capital FM
Capital London is a radio station owned and operated by the Global media company as part of its national Capital FM Network. As Capital Radio it was launched in the London area in 1973 as one of Britain's first two commercial radio stations. I ...
between 2004 and 2011.
Vaughan currently presents the
Radio X drivetime show, weekdays from 4pm to 7pm (commonly referred to on air as ''The 4til7 Thang'') and ''The Kickabout'' every Saturday from 11am to 1pm. Vaughan also writes a weekly column in ''
The Sun'' newspaper reviewing recent film releases.
Early life
Vaughan was born in
Barnet
Barnet may refer to:
People
*Barnet (surname)
* Barnet (given name)
Places United Kingdom
*Chipping Barnet or High Barnet, commonly known as Barnet, one of three focal towns of the borough below.
*East Barnet, a district of the borough below; an ...
, London, to an engineer father, Randal, and a
psychotherapist mother, Fay.
Education
Vaughan went to St Andrew's Primary School in
Totteridge
Totteridge is a residential area and former village in the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is a mixture of suburban development and open land (including some farmland) situated 8 miles (13 km) north north-west of Charing Cross. It ...
,
Barnet
Barnet may refer to:
People
*Barnet (surname)
* Barnet (given name)
Places United Kingdom
*Chipping Barnet or High Barnet, commonly known as Barnet, one of three focal towns of the borough below.
*East Barnet, a district of the borough below; an ...
and private boarding schools, Bramcote School,
Gamston,
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The trad ...
and
Uppingham School
Uppingham School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils 13-18) in Uppingham, Rutland, England, founded in 1584 by Robert Johnson, the Archdeacon of Leicester, who also established Oakham School. The headma ...
,
Rutland.
During his school years he showed a talent for comedy,
[ playing the violin and singing.
]
Early adult life and imprisonment
On leaving school, Vaughan moved back to London and originally wanted to become a writer.[ He ended up with a variety of jobs ranging from a grill chef to even starting his own business selling boxer shorts.]
In 1988, aged 21, Vaughan was arrested for trying to sell £15,000 of cocaine
Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly used recreationally for its euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South Ameri ...
to undercover police officers in a hotel on the M1 motorway
The M1 motorway connects London to Leeds, where it joins the A1(M) near Aberford, to connect to Newcastle. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK; the first motorway in the country was the Preston By-pass, which ...
near Northampton. In the immediate aftermath of his initial success with Moviewatch, Vaughan claimed in interviews, including one with ''Mayfair'' magazine, that he had been incarcerated for the distribution of pornographic videotapes.
Latterly, Vaughan recalled the event in an interview with the '' Daily Telegraph'':
One night, an old schoolfriend, a student, called and asked him if he had any drug connections; the friend had met somebody who wanted to know. (The somebody, it turned out, was a drug dealer who had been arrested and was now working for the police.) No, said Vaughan, he didn't.
'The next day,' Vaughan says, 'I do bump into someone. He calls me and says, "Tell your friend it's all sorted."' Vaughan arranged the meeting at a service station on the M1, and went there to introduce the protagonists. He was slammed against a wall by a policeman who asked him how old he was. When Vaughan said 21, the cop said, "You won't be seeing sunshine again until you're 36."[
]
He was given a four-year jail sentence for dealing cocaine, served at Stocken Prison in Rutland. On release from prison, Vaughan decided to turn his life around and started a job working as a journalist for the '' Peterborough Herald'' newspaper, reporting on legal cases in his column, ''Johnny Vaughan in the Courts''.[
]
Professional background
Early career
His big break came in 1993 when he visited a friend's production company and through a chance meeting was offered a job with Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
. He started his television career presenting the movie review show '' Moviewatch'', as well as the music show ''Naked City'' and his own chat show ''Here's Johnny''.[ He also hosted a late night show, ''Fabulous'', on the old BBC Radio Five in 1993.
]
''The Big Breakfast''
Channel 4 producers decided he was a natural in front of the camera, and in light of ailing viewing figures he was chosen to front ''The Big Breakfast
''The Big Breakfast'' is a British breakfast light entertainment television programme that was broadcast on Channel 4. Originally presented by Chris Evans and Gaby Roslin, the show was latterly presented by Mo Gilligan and AJ Odudu.
The p ...
'' from 1997 until 2001, forming a successful partnership with former programme weather girl
''Weather Girl'' is a 2009 comedy film written and directed by Blayne Weaver and starring Tricia O'Kelley, Mark Harmon, Jon Cryer, and Enrico Colantoni.
After a morning show personality discovers her boyfriend's infidelity, she loses it on-air, c ...
and actress Denise van Outen from 1998. Van Outen's cheeky ''"Essex girl
Essex girl, as a pejorative stereotype in the United Kingdom, applies to a woman viewed as promiscuous and unintelligent, characteristics jocularly attributed to women from the county of Essex. It is applied widely throughout the country and has g ...
"'' personality played off well against the quick wit of Vaughan, and together they recovered audience figures to record levels. One feature of Vaughan's presentation was the way in which he frequently interacted with the various cameramen and technical people in the studio, turning some of them into popular characters in their own right. His ability to build a rapport with regulars from different walks of life such as Trevor Baylis
Trevor Graham Baylis (13 May 1937 – 5 March 2018) was an English inventor best known for the wind-up radio. The radio, instead of relying on batteries or external electrical source, is powered by the user winding a crank. This stores energy ...
, Mark Bright
Mark Abraham Bright (born 6 June 1962) is an English sports correspondent and former footballer.
Born to a Gambian father and English mother, he was adopted into a foster family in Stoke-on-Trent at an early age. He played non-league football ...
and Drusilla Beyfus, as well as the depth of knowledge he revealed in his Shed interviews, established him as something of a polymath. Also notable was that each programme finished with a zany situational competition in which Johnny revealed considerable talent as a character actor. In parallel with ''The Big Breakfast'' Vaughan presented another film show, ''The Johnny Vaughan Film Show''.
Van Outen left to pursue her acting career at the end of 1998. The partnership with replacement model Kelly Brook
Kelly Ann Parsons (born 23 November 1979), known professionally as Kelly Brook, is an English model, actress, and media personality. She is known for her modelling work in the UK, and in the US for her role as Prudence on the NBC sitcom '' On ...
failed to reproduce the chemistry between Vaughan and Van Outen, and audience figures "plummeted". Brook was replaced by Liza Tarbuck and Van Outen returned again as main female presenter in 2000 but the show was unrevivable. Vaughan and Van Outen left the show in January 2001 after both their contracts had run out.
Move to the BBC
In 2001, the BBC reportedly paid Vaughan £2.5 million to leave Channel 4. He transferred 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. ...
...
to present a late-night talk show, ''Johnny Vaughan Tonight'' in the same vein of American shows by
. Viewing figures were good (the show regularly received 2.5 – 3 million viewers a night) and commentators suggested that the format was best suited to the free-wheeling Vaughan. However, a highly promoted
'', which Vaughan wrote and acted in, was poorly received by the critics. The show lost 40% of its audience over its first three episodes and was not renewed for a second series.