Broadcasting Career
Simmons' career in broadcasting began when he appeared in amateur drama productions in Belfast while working for Air Canada at their offices in the city. In Julian (a documentary produced for the Belfast community television station NVTV), he observed: "Somebody saw me in a Belfast comedy, and said that 'You should be on TV, I know somebody who you should speak to'. So I set my letter in, and duly arrived up at Havelock House, with amateur tapes that I had made of comedy sketches that I was performing in my kitchen, and bathroom, and bedroom... and I presented those and they listened to them and said, 'Yes, those are quite funny, but there's no opening for that sort of thing here at the moment. Here's a news bulletin, let's hear you read that.'" Simmons was then offered a six-week trial as an announcer at Ulster Television.
When he started working at UTV, Simmons' job involved reading news and sports bulletins as well as introducing the channel's programmes, but he felt uneasy with newsreading. "I didn't know what I was talking about... My main worry when I was reading the news was...you are worried about making a mistake, but I was also worried I was going to laugh. I have this thing if I'm hearing bad news, or someone goes to tell me something grave... it must be a nervous thing, I feel myself starting to smirk. So I was always terrifed that when I was reading the news that I was going to laugh."
In the 2005 Julian documentary, Simmons describes how his continuity duties eventually changed: "Continuity was very straight... and then one Christmas, I was in for four or five days over the Christmas period, all done up like a dog's dinner and a dickie bow... no news to read, so I started introducing these programmes and acting 'a bit of the lig' in between the programmes. And it went down very well, apparently. They decided I would do permanently weekends: Friday/Saturday/Sunday primetime, where the programmes are all entertainment; nothing hard or heavy."
Between October 2006 and February 2009, Simmons appeared on UTV Live and UTV Life to talk about upcoming storylines on Coronation Street and Emmerdale, the two main soap operas shown on UTV. He has also presented the light-hearted archive series, UTV Rewind and the travel series Come Fly with Julian.
In addition to his presenting career at UTV, Simmons starred in the film Wild About Harry, playing the role of Michael Bay.
Read more about this topic: Julian Simmons
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