Jon Holmes - Career

Career

After graduation, Holmes's first foray into BBC radio comedy was for BBC Radio 4 with his debut comedy series Grievous Bodily Radio in 1997. He also had a show on Power FM on Sunday nights. The Jon & Andy show (with Andy Hurst), which Holmes presented from 1998–2000, won him a gold Sony Radio Academy Award for entertainment. It was here where Holmes began to acquire his reputation for controversy with on air interactive listener games such as 'I'm Standing On...' (a time trial in which listeners were encouraged to stand on their neighbour's car, wheelie bin etc. and shout "I'm Standing on....' whatever it was until their angry neighbour came out and shouted abuse).

In 2001 Holmes co-created the hit Radio 4 show Dead Ringers, for which he jointly won his second gold Sony, and the show transferred to BBC Two.

He then moved to XFM London "for approximately an hour" before being fired for going to the toilet on air in fellow presenter Dermot O'Leary's desk drawer. Subsequently signed by Virgin radio, the late-night Jon Holmes show on Virgin Radio ran from 2001 to 2002, but Holmes was fired after several controversial stunts. Virgin were fined a record £75,000 for Holmes' feature "Swearing Radio Hangman for the Under-12s", in which he persuaded a nine-year-old girl to spell out and then repeat the phrase "soapy tit wank".

Meanwhile, on BBC Radio 4, he was writing and appearing on The Now Show and The 99p Challenge, where he first worked with Armando Iannucci. Since then he has worked with Iannucci on Gash (Channel 4, 2003), Time Trumpet (BBC2, 2006), and in 2006 Holmes received his sixth Sony Award for his work on Radio 4's Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive. On The Now Show, Holmes is regularly mocked for his short stature by his co-presenters as a running joke.

He also hosted a spin-off BBC Radio 7 radio series and official podcast of the American drama series Heroes, featuring on BBC Two in the UK.

Throughout 2007, Holmes presented the Friday afternoon drivetime show on London talk station LBC, leaving in January 2008 when the station's new owners made the station more news-based.

In November 2007 he began a new Radio 4 series, Listen Against, which he co-presents with newsreader Alice Arnold. The show "takes the programmes out of the radio, fiddles around with them and then puts them back together the wrong way round". The programme was well received, The Daily Telegraph calling the show "beautifully crafted and sharp" and The Guardian described it as "the mischievous offspring of Radio 4's Feedback and The Day Today. Series 2 began on Radio 4 in November 2008 and Series 3 was broadcast in the Summer of 2010. "Were the Python team starting out today, they might conceivably come up with something like the utterly fabulous Listen Against." - Independent On Sunday. "Sly, satirical, smart and very funny. Natural successor to On The Hour and The Day Today” Sunday Telegraph. The show was listed in the Telegraph{{'}]s 'Top 10 Programmes of 2010' and was nominated for The Independent's 2010 'Why I Pay My Licence Fee' Award.

A BBC Radio 2 film panel show, I'm Spartacus, aired on the network in April 2009 while also on Radio 2, Holmes co-writes and presents The Day the Music Died alongside Andrew Collins. He has also fronted his own BBC Radio 1 show and, since September 2006, has had his own weekend show on BBC Radio 6 Music.

Holmes is also a regular contributor to the Radio 4 programme Loose Ends where he interviews a variety of big-name guests, while on BBC Radio 5Live he produces the quirky magazine show Men's Hour and presents Mob Rule with Jon Holmes, described as 'Points of View for nutters".