Timmy Mallett (born 18 October 1955) is an English television presenter, broadcaster, author and artist. He is known for his striking visual style, colourful glasses and shirts, and a giant pink foam

mallet A mallet is a tool used for imparting force on another object, often made of rubber or sometimes wood, that is smaller than a maul or beetle, and usually has a relatively large head. General overview The term is descriptive of the ...

(known as "Mallett's Mallet"), as well as his "utterly brilliant!" and "blaaah!"

catchphrase A catchphrase (alternatively spelled catch phrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass ...

Career

Radio

Mallett was born in Marple,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

. He attended Rose Hill Primary School in Marple, Earnseat Prep School in

Arnside Arnside is a village and civil parish in Westmorland and Furness, Cumbria, England. It is Historic counties of England, historically part of Westmorland, near the border with Lancashire, England. The Lake District National parks of England and ...

, and Hyde Grammar School. His media career started while he was a student at the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

where he worked on the

student radio Campus radio (also known as college radio, university radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively created or produced ...

station,

Radio Warwick RAW 1251AM is the student radio station at the University of Warwick and winner of the 2000 and 2003 BBC Radio 1 Student Radio Association Best Station awards. Formerly known as W963, during the years when broadcasts were conducted via an in ...

. After graduating with a degree in History, he started working at BBC Radio Oxford. He later moved to Centre Radio (now Capital Midlands) as the station's launch presenter. He also presented on

Radio Luxembourg Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg). The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earlies ...

and

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

Piccadilly Radio Greatest Hits Radio Manchester & The North West is an Independent Local Radio station based in Manchester, England, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Greatest Hits Radio Network. It broadcasts to Greater Manchester and North West En ...

. In 1982 Timmy was also part of the "Stayin' Alive" team on BBC Radio 1 The programme he hosted at Piccadilly was ''Timmy on the Tranny'', a weekday evening show that ran from 8.00pm–11.00pm and took its name from Mallett's lunchtime and later afternoon shows on Radio Oxford. Among Mallett's team of helpers were Chris Evans (known as 'Nobby Nolevel'), Andy Bird (who played the pirate radio character 'Radio Diggle') and Karen Walsh (the original 'Aunty Boney kneecaps'). This led to Mallett co-presenting the Manchester-based

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matter, incorporating genres such as comedy, drama and ...

youth music show '' Oxford Road Show'' for 1985 series . Mallett won two Radio Academy Awards for Best Local Radio Presenter (1984) and Best Pop Music Show (1986).

Television

In 1983, Timmy joined

TV-am TV-am was a TV company that broadcast the ITV franchise for breakfast television in the United Kingdom from 1 February 1983 until 31 December 1992. The station was the UK's first national operator of a commercial breakfast television franchise ...

, where he interviewed the musical act and bands of the day for the pop news strand, Timmy also presented ''Summer Run'' on Saturday mornings for the new breakfast television station. In Autumn 1984, he became a presenter of '' Wide Awake Club'', a new Saturday morning children's programme on TV-am, with co-presenters Michaela Strachan, James Baker, Arabella Warner and

Tommy Boyd Timothy Leslie "Tommy" Boyd (born 14 December 1952) is a British television and radio presenter. He gained prominence in the 1970s and 1980s as host of the children's television programmes ''Magpie'', '' Wide Awake Club'', and ''The Saturday ...

. Future actor

Mike Myers Michael John Myers, (born May 25, 1963) is a Canadian actor, comedian, and filmmaker. His accolades include seven MTV Movie & TV Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2002, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood W ...

also had a minor role alongside

Neil Mullarkey Neil Mullarkey is an English actor, writer and comedian. Early life and education From 1972 to 1979, Mullarkey was educated at Kingston Grammar School, an independent school for boys (now coeducational), in Kingston upon Thames, followed by R ...

. TV-am found itself lacking a school holidays programme after

Roland Rat Roland Rat is a British television puppet character. He was created, operated and voiced by David Claridge, who had previously designed and operated Mooncat, a puppet in the Children's ITV television programme ''Get Up and Go!''. Character sum ...

moved to the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, and he was offered the chance to present it. The replacement, a spin-off of ''Wide Awake Club'', was called '' Wacaday'' (based on the addition of 'aday' to the initials 'WAC' for ''Wide Awake Club'') and began broadcasting in October 1985. In the Wide Awake Club, contestants were hit over the head by his famed mallet for getting answers wrong. In later years, a talking mini-version of the mallet called "Pinky Punky" was introduced (the name chosen after Mallett asked viewers to write in with their ideas) and soon became one of Mallett's established sidekicks along with Magic, his pet

cockatiel The cockatiel (; ''Nymphicus hollandicus''), also known as the weero/weiro or quarrion, is a medium-sized parrot that is a member of its own branch of the cockatoo family endemic to Australia. They are prized as exotic household pets and compa ...

. ''Wacaday'' ended in 1992 when TV-am lost its franchise to broadcast. Since then, Mallett has run his own production company, Brilliant TV. In 1993, Mallett starred in

The Children's Channel The Children's Channel, also known as TCC, was a British-based pan-European children's television channel in Europe, Asia and Africa, which was owned by Flextech in London, England, UK. It began broadcasting on the original Eutelsat satellite ...

's ''Around the World in 80 seconds'' as Captain Everything. From 1997 until 2002, he acted in '' Timmy Towers'', for

CITV CITV is a British children's morning programming block on ITV2 and formerly a free-to-air channel owned by ITV plc. CITV, then Children's ITV, launched on 3 January 1983 as a late afternoon programming block on the ITV network for children aged ...

Other

During 1983 until 1990 Mallett also co-presented numerous BBC School programmes included Radio series "Looking at Nature" and Radio Club. While on Television: Walrus. What Should I Do?, "Wondermaths", Logo Gogo Logo and Questions In 2002, Mallett made

West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is a professional Association football, football club based in Stratford, London, Stratford, East London, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league system, English f ...

agree to stop selling copies of their mascot, Herbie the Hammer, in their club shop after he complained that it looked too similar to Pinky Punky. West Ham United withdrew the item. In 2004, he was a stand-in contestant for the

ITV1 ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the ITV (TV network), Channel 3 ...

jungle-based reality series '' I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!''. In 2008, he entered the show as a full contestant. In 2008, Mallett appeared on '' Big Brother's Little Brother''. In September 2008, Mallett appeared on the

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

politics show '' This Week'' talking about being positive when things get tough. In November 2008, Mallett appeared in the eighth series of '' I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!''. He entered the show by being captured in an oversized net and imprisoned in jungle jail. The celebrities were given an option to trade their possessions for him and

David Van Day David Van Day (born David Paul Day, 28 November 1956) is an English singer, songwriter and politician who was formerly a member of the pop vocal duo Dollar. He was also in the 1970s vocal group Guys 'n' Dolls (with his Dollar partner Thereza ...

to enter. They refused. On 30 November 2008, Mallett was the fourth contestant eliminated from the show after being placed in the bottom two in the public voting and taking part in a play-off bush tucker eating trial with

Brian Paddick Brian Leonard Paddick, Baron Paddick (born 24 April 1958), is a British life peer and retired police officer. He was the Liberal Democrat candidate for the London mayoral elections of 2008 and of 2012, and until his retirement in May 2007 wa ...

Music

With producers Nigel Wright and

Andrew Lloyd Webber Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948) is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End theatre, West End and on Broadway theatre, Broad ...

, Mallett formed the band Bombalurina, named after a character in Lloyd Webber's musical ''

Cats The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the ...

''. Along with female vocalists and dancers Dawn Andrews and Annie Dunkley, they released a cover of the single " Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini". It reached number one in the UK Singles Chart in August 1990. Follow up single "

Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Backseat "Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Back Seat" is a song written by Bob Hilliard and Lee Pockriss. It was recorded by Paul Evans (musician), Paul Evans (US No. 9) in 1959 in music, 1959, and covered the same year by The Avons (UK No. 3). Ingrid R ...

" reached number 18 in the UK in December 1990. The Bombalurina album ''Huggin' And A Kissin with 14 tracks was released in December 1990. Ditching the Bombalurina name, but again working with producer Nigel Wright, Mallett released a cover of

Kenny Kenny is a surname, a given name, and a diminutive of several different given names. In Ireland, the surname is an Anglicisation of the Irish ''Ó Cionnaith'', also spelt ''Ó Cionnaoith'' and ''Ó Cionaodha'', meaning "descendant of Cionnaith". ...

's "The Bump" under the name M.C. Mallett in 1991. This failed to chart. For "Tommy's Campaign", Mallett recorded "The Laughing Policeman" with producer

George Martin Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, and musician. He was commonly referred to as the "fifth Beatle" because of his extensive involvement in each of the Beatle ...

in 1991. Under the name Del Costa, Mallett released a megamix version of "Hot Hot Hot" in summer 1992. In 2008, Mallett featured in

Skepta Joseph Olaitan Adenuga Jr. (born 19 September 1982), known professionally as Skepta, is a British grime MC, rapper, record producer and DJ. Alongside his younger brother Jme, he briefly joined Roll Deep before they became founding members of ...

's video "Rolex Sweep" and accompanied Skepta to the MOBO nominations. In 2013, Mallett recorded

Gilbert O'Sullivan Raymond Edward "Gilbert" O'Sullivan (born 1 December 1946) is an Irish singer-songwriter who achieved his most significant success during the early 1970s, with hits including " Alone Again (Naturally)", " Clair" and "Get Down". His songs are of ...

's hit "Ooh-Wakka-Doo-Wakka-Day". Mallett's "Summer Holiday" video was made in 2014.

Stage shows

Mallett has appeared in

pantomime Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment, generally combining gender-crossing actors and topical humour with a story more or less based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or ...

Lewisham Lewisham ( ) is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the Historic counties of England, historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in ...

theatre, Cliffs Pavilion

Southend Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in south-eastern Essex, England. It lies on the nor ...

, Hexagon

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

, Derngate

Northampton Northampton ( ) is a town and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is the county town of Northamptonshire and the administrative centre of the Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority of West Northamptonshire. The town is sit ...

, Arena

St Albans St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major ...

, Wyvern

Swindon Swindon () is a town in Wiltshire, England. At the time of the 2021 Census the population of the built-up area was 183,638, making it the largest settlement in the county. Located at the northeastern edge of the South West England region, Swi ...

, Forum

Billingham Billingham is a List of towns in England, town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in County Durham, England. The town is on the north side of the River Tees and is governed as part of the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees unitary authority ...

, Pavilion

Worthing Worthing ( ) is a seaside town and borough in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 113,094 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Br ...

, Grand Pavilion

Porthcawl Porthcawl () is a town and community in the Bridgend County Borough of Wales. It is located on the south coast, west of Cardiff and south-east of Swansea. Historically part of Glamorgan and situated on a low limestone headland on the South ...

, Playhouse

Weston-super-Mare Weston-super-Mare ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the North Somerset unitary district, in the county of Somerset, England. It lies by the Bristol Channel south-west of Bristol between Worlebury Hill and Bleadon Hill. Its population ...

and Theatre Royal Windsor. In December 2016, he appeared in ''Jack and the Beanstalk'' at Theatre Royal Windsor. While staying in

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 ...

, Mallett rescued a woman from the marina in December 2001. He toured the

Pontins Pontins is a British company operating holiday parks in the UK, founded in 1946 by Fred Pontin. It was acquired by Britannia Hotels in 2011. Pontins specialises in offering half-board and self-catering holidays featuring entertainment at reso ...

holiday camps with the "Utterly Brilliant Timmy Mallett Show" in 2014. He toured Park Holidays UK's sites doing ''The Timmy Mallett Show'' in 2016.

Art

Mallett is an

oil painter Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...

and acrylic and

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour ( Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting method"Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to the ...

artist whose work sells in galleries across UK and Europe. His work is distributed and published in limited editions by De Montfort Fine Art and Buckingham Fine Art In 2002, he painted 50 portraits for

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...

Golden Jubilee A golden jubilee marks a 50th anniversary. It variously is applied to people, events, and nations. Bangladesh In Bangladesh, golden jubilee refers the 50th anniversary year of the separation from Pakistan and is called in Bengali language, ...

including

Wendy Craig Wendy Craig (born Anne Gwendolyn Craig; 20 June 1934) is an English actress who is best known for her appearances in the sitcoms '' Not in Front of the Children'' (1967–1970), '' ...And Mother Makes Three'' (1971–1973), '' ...And Mother M ...

Jim Rosenthal Jim Rosenthal (born 6 November 1947) is an English sports presenter and commentator. In a long broadcasting career, Rosenthal has presented coverage of many sports including football, rugby, automotive racing, boxing and athletics. He has covere ...

Lorraine Kelly Lorraine Kelly (born 30 November 1959) is a Scottish television presenter. She has presented various television shows for ITV and STV, including '' Good Morning Britain'' (1988–1992), ''GMTV'' (1993–2010), ''This Morning'' (2003–2005, ...

Ulrika Jonsson Eva Ulrika Jonsson (born 16 August 1967) is a Swedish-British television presenter and model. She became known as a TV-am weather presenter, and moved on to present the ITV show '' Gladiators'', and later featured as a team captain on the BBC T ...

and

Sir Clive Woodward Sir Clive Ronald Woodward (born 6 January 1956) is an English former rugby union player and coach. He was coach of the team from 1997 to 2004, managing them to victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup. He also coached the 2005 British & Irish Lio ...

. In 2012, Mallett won the Best up and coming artist Fine Art Trade Guild. In 2012, Mallett painted a telephone box in Windsor with likenesses of the Queen, Prince Harry and Catherine the Duchess of Cambridge. In the summer of 2018, Mallett discovered and painted his father's secret Galloway bridge scene from September 1966.

Selected television programmes

* ''

TV-AM TV-am was a TV company that broadcast the ITV franchise for breakfast television in the United Kingdom from 1 February 1983 until 31 December 1992. The station was the UK's first national operator of a commercial breakfast television franchise ...

'' (1983–1985) * '' Oxford Road Show'' (1984) * '' Wide Awake Club'' (1984–1989) * '' Wacaday'' (1985–1992) * ''Utterly Brilliant'' (1989–1991) * ''Questions'' (1990) BBC Two education series * ''Around the World in 80 Seconds'' (1993–1994) * ''Way to Go'' (1996–1997) * '' Timmy Towers'' (1997–2002) * '' The Beeps'' (2007) * '' I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!'' (2008 series)

Sport

Mallett is a supporter of

Oxford United Oxford United Football Club () is a professional association football, football club based in Oxford, England. The club compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football league system, English football. Founded as Headingto ...

and Maidenhead United. Mallett is a long-distance cycling adventurer. In 2022, he completed a solo circumnavigation of the coast of Britain, following in the footsteps of

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbu ...

. There is an online map from the

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

showing the route, paintings and videos around nearly 5000 miles of coastline. He rode through Northern Ireland in May 2015, Lincolnshire in summer 2015 and through Cumbria in May 2016. In spring 2018, Mallett cycled alone from home in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

through

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

along the pilgrimage route, the

Camino de Santiago The Camino de Santiago (, ; ), or the Way of St. James in English, is a network of pilgrims' ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tra ...

Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela, simply Santiago, or Compostela, in the province of Province of A Coruña, A Coruña, is the capital of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city ...

Finisterre and back, a distance of over 4000 km, inspired by his older brother Martin with Downs syndrome. The story forms the basis for his memoirs ''Utterly Brilliant: My life's Journey'', published in 2020 by SPCK, which also includes some of the paintings produced on this adventure.

References

External links

*
Timmy Mallett official site
timmymallett.co.uk
Mallett's Palette official art site
Mallettspalette.co.uk
Wacaday TV show site
Wacaday.co.uk {{DEFAULTSORT:Mallett, Timmy 1955 births Living people Alumni of the University of Warwick English artists English children's television presenters English radio DJs People from Marple, Greater Manchester Radio Luxembourg (English) presenters