SHORT BIT
The eight-time Sony Award and double Bafta winning writer, comedian and broadcaster called Jon Holmes haunts your radio like a tiny ghost, presenting the Xfm breakfast show, writing and performing on BBC Radio 4 as one of The Now Show team, and his own series Listen Against is “glorious”, “triumphant”, “stunningly made” and “beautifully crafted and scalpel sharp” depending on which newspaper you read. He also appears on BBC Radio 5Live’s Men’s Hour and also has his own show on the network Jon Holmes’s Mob Rule.
On TV Jon has worked with Armando Iannucci, Stephen Fry, Harry Hill and Graham Norton. Jon also co-created Dead Ringers and co-writes the hugely popular Royal Television Society and Bafta Award winning Horrible Histories for BBC One. Other TV includes Mock The Week, Have I Got News For You, Top Gear and 2010/2011 Unwrapped.
LONGER BIT
Jon holds a joint degree in Radio, Film and Television and English from Canterbury and on graduating Jon somehow went to his own show on BBC Radio 4 called Grievous Bodily Radio which was “fast and furious… spot on” according to The Independent and “disgusting” according to the East Anglia Gazette. Since then his other Radio 4 credits have included co-creating and writing the multi award winning Dead Ringers, writing and being a regular panellist on The 99p Challenge, writer / performer on the Sony Award winning and Channel 4 Political Award nominated The Now Show and working with Armando Iannucci on his Sony Award winning Charm Offensive for Radio 4 and Time Trumpet for BBC2. His own Radio 4 comedy series, Listen Against “the mischievous offspring of The Day Today and Feedback” (Guardian) has just finished its fourth series.
His music radio shows have earned him Sony Gold and Best New Presenter Awards but he’s no stranger to talk radio either, having hosted the Drivetime show on London’s LBC 97.3 where he could be regularly heard verbally jousting with mentals. He’s also had his own shows on XFM, Radio 1 and Virgin and it was from the latter that he quite notoriously earned the sack in 2002 when a phone in game called ‘Swearing Radio Hangman for the Under 12s went tragically expensive in terms of a record fine. Jon still holds the record for ‘largest fine ever for taste and decency offences in British broadcasting’. Sadly he didn’t get a certificate or anything. A comedy special Jon Holmes on Radio 1 aired on the station, during which Chris Moyles was accused of eating a baby.
TV work includes writing, performing and presenting in various combinations on Time Trumpet (BBC2), Mock The Week (BBC2) 7 Days (BBC3), Dead Ringers (BBC2) The Impressionable Jon Culshaw (ITV1),Armando Iannucci’s Gash (CH4) , The State We’re In and Celebdaq (both BBC3), Have I Got News For You, 29 Minutes of Fame, ( both BBC1) and co-hosting Series 5 of The 11 O’Clock Show (CH4). He was also Programme Consultant on the multi award winning V Graham Norton (CH4) and has appeared on The Wright Stuff (CH5), and Sky News where he regularly made the presenter Anna Botting go red and start giggling. He’s also been on This Morning (ITV1) a few times and once called Phillip Schofield a “witch” on live TV. He was later approached to see if he wanted to be stuck in the jungle for ITV1’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here but told them to sod off.
Jon is also a travel writer for The Sunday Times and his books Rock Star Babylon, The Now Show Book and The History of the World Through Twitter are now also available on a futuristic Kindle.
He wrote the script for the BAFTA Film Awards with, and for, Stephen Fry to great acclaim and was the host for the MOJO Awards. He has also written words for the likes of Keanu Reeves, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx and Bono. He has been variously described as “clever…but warped” by The Sunday Times, “a genius” by Heat, “wickedly funny” by The Times and “a tosser” by Martine McCutcheon in an interview in Smash Hits. He is most proud of that one.
