Michael Elliott (17 July 1946 – 23 December 2014), also known as Mike the Mouth, was an English stand-up comedian, actor, television presenter, radio personality and comedian.
Early life
Elliott was born in
Sunderland
Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...
. He attended St Cuthbert's RC Primary in
Grindon, Sunderland, and St Aidan's RC Grammar School in Ashbrooke, Sunderland. He later taught English and Drama at
Hartlepool
Hartlepool ( ) is a seaside resort, seaside and port town in County Durham, England. It is governed by a unitary authority borough Borough of Hartlepool, named after the town. The borough is part of the devolved Tees Valley area with an estimat ...
's Dyke House School.
Elliot was part of The Northern Front Folk Band which was really just a year long experiment with something called "folk music hall". To this end a club was started in The Londonderry pub in Sunderland – with Elliott being the driving force as organiser and compere. The group with Mike alongside both Ed Pickford and Nick Fenwick were amazingly popular on the folk music circuit.
In 1983, he first found national fame on ''At Last, It's Mike Elliott'', broadcast on
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
. For several years, he was a mainstay of
Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parishes in England, civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th centu ...
's UK tours, working as warm up and compere.
He released two albums on Newcastle-based Rubber Records: ''Out of the Brown'' RUB 025 (1976) and ''At Last It's Mike Elliott'' RUB 044 (1982).
In 1992, Elliott returned to work for
Tyne Tees Television
ITV Tyne Tees, previously known as Tyne Tees, Channel 3 North East and Tyne Tees Television, is the ITV (TV network), ITV television franchisee for North East England and parts of North Yorkshire.
Tyne Tees launched on 15 January 1959 from stu ...
, presenting a number of regional documentary series, including ''Down Colliery Way'', about miners in England's northeast.
Acting
Elliott had a number of acting roles, including the boxing coach George Watson in ''
Billy Elliot
''Billy Elliot'' is a 2000 British coming-of-age Comedy film, comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Daldry and written by Lee Hall (playwright), Lee Hall. Set in County Durham in North East England during the 1984–1985 miners' strike, the fi ...
'', and a number of roles in television drama series, including ''
Crocodile Shoes'', ''
Byker Grove
''Byker Grove'' is a British teen drama and coming of age television series which aired between 1989 and 2006 on BBC One.
The show was set in Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne and was filmed in nearby Benwell. It was created by writer Adele Rose a ...
'', ''
Spender
''Spender'' is a British television police procedural drama, created by Ian La Frenais and Jimmy Nail, that first broadcast on 8 January 1991 on BBC1. The series, which also starred Nail as the titular character, ran for three series between 1 ...
'', ''
Harry
Harry may refer to:
Television
* ''Harry'' (American TV series), 1987 comedy series starring Alan Arkin
* ''Harry'' (British TV series), 1993 BBC drama that ran for two seasons
* ''Harry'' (New Zealand TV series), 2013 crime drama starring Oscar K ...
'', and ''
New Voices''. He played a taxi driver in ''
Goal
A goal or objective is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan, and commit to achieve. People endeavour to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines.
A goal is roughly similar to ...
'' and ''
Goal! 3: Taking on the World''.
Radio
In February 1995, Elliott was given a new nickname as "Mike the Mouth" when he launched the first late night talk show on
100-102 Century FM in the
North East
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A ''compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each ...
. He was suspended in his first year at the station for swearing at a woman caller who said she was a benefits swindler, but was reinstated after fans protested outside of the station's studios in
Gateshead
Gateshead () is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, ...
.
In January 2000, he was taken off the air in the middle of his show, following an expletive-filled outburst at a caller.
Bosses sacked him, assuming, from his behavior and slurred speech, that he was drunk.
However, Elliott claimed that his "strange behavior" was caused by combining two glasses of wine during a family meal with the cold remedies
Benylin
Benylin is a brand name owned by Kenvue for a range of cough, cold and flu medications. Some Benylin products also contain codeine, which is used to treat pain, cough and diarrhea.
The flagship cough syrup and cold care brand is marketed in sev ...
and Night Nurse.
In June that year, he was reinstated by the station.
In 2001, he launched a
board game
A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...
called ''
Social Insecurity'', with some similarities to ''
Monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...
''.
In December 2002, a new Mike Elliott radio show launched on
North East Magic Radio in the same slot as his previous program. However, on
MW, it failed to gain the same number of listeners that the Century FM series had achieved and Elliott was released from his contract in July 2003. In December 2003, Elliott went back on air on
Sunderland
Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...
's
Sun FM Sun FM may refer to:
* Nation Radio North East's previous name
* Sun FM (Sri Lanka), an English language radio station based in Sri Lanka
* CICF-FM, a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 105.7 FM in Vernon, British Columbia, using the on-air br ...
. In January 2006, the series was re-branded ''
North South Divided'', pitching the northern stations of the
Local Radio Company against their southern counterparts. Broadcast over almost 30 stations, this was the first time listeners outside of the North East had a taste of Elliott, alongside another presenter, Alex Dyke (who was later replaced by
Carol McGiffin). On 5 July 2006, ''North South Divided'' ended.
Death
On 23 December 2014, Elliott died of
esophageal cancer
Esophageal cancer (American English) or oesophageal cancer (British English) is cancer arising from the esophagus—the food pipe that runs between the throat and the stomach. Symptoms often include dysphagia, difficulty in swallowing and weigh ...
at age 68.
References
External links
*
Interview on Lindisfarne site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elliott, Mike
1946 births
2014 deaths
20th-century English male actors
21st-century English male actors
English male comedians
English male film actors
English male television actors
English radio personalities
Male actors from Sunderland
Comedians from Tyne and Wear
Deaths from esophageal cancer in England
Place of death missing