Kirsty Wark

Kirsteen Anne "Kirsty" Wark FRSE (born 3 February 1955) is a Scottish television presenter with a long career at the BBC.

Starting on Radio Scotland, where she became a producer, Wark switched to television, presenting The Late Show and Newsnight, as well as hosting her own interview programme and launching a production company.

Her activities have included reporting on the Lockerbie bombings, hosting a book quiz and encouraging open discussion of menopause.

In The Great British Bake Off, she qualified as Star Baker.

Wark's powerful, searching interview style and perceived closeness to Labour Party figures have provoked controversy.

Wark joined the BBC in 1976 as a graduate researcher for BBC Radio Scotland, before promotion a year later as producer of Good Morning Scotland and current affairs programmes.

Wark switched to television in 1982, producing Reporting Scotland and the lunchtime political programme Agenda and current affairs series Current Account.

She then moved into presenting, fronting Reporting Scotland, Seven Days, Left, Right and Centre and Scottish Questions coverage for BBC Scotland, before moving to network television as part of the Breakfast Time presenting team.

In 1988, she was one of the first reporters to cover the Lockerbie disaster.

In 1990, Wark demonstrated her distinctive line of questioning in an interview with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Wark was a presenter on BBC2 arts programme The Late Show (from 1990–3) and the heritage programme One Foot in the Past.

In the mid-1990s, Wark presented the monthly audience debate programme Words with Wark (1994–98), In 1999, she presented The Kirsty Wark Show, her own interview programme.

During the 1990s, she presented many programmes produced by her production company Wark Clements & Co, including Words With Wark, Restless Nation, Building A Nation and Lives Less Ordinary.

She was named journalist of the year by BAFTA Scotland in 1993 and Best Television Presenter in 1997.

Wark was born in Dumfries, Scotland, to Jimmy Wark, a solicitor, and Roberta Wark, a schoolteacher.

Her father served in the Second Battalion of the Glasgow Highlanders during the Second World War and was awarded a Military Cross for heroism during the Normandy Landings.

Wark was educated at Kilmarnock Grammar Primary and subsequently Ayr's independent Wellington School.

She studied history, specifically Scottish Studies, at the University of Edinburgh.

Wark has been a presenter on the BBC programme Newsnight since 1993.

Wark was named journalist of the year by BAFTA Scotland in 1993 and Best Television Presenter in 1997.

She was also nominated for the prestigious Richard Dimbleby Award for Best Television Presenter (Factual, Features and News) in the BAFTAS 2000.

In 2006, she presented a series of programmes on BBC television about countries on the continent entitled Tales from Old Europe.

In June 2006 she interviewed Harold Pinter.

Wark hosted the 10th annual Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Awards on 30 November 2007 for STV.

She made a cameo appearance in the 2008 Doctor Who episode "The Poison Sky".

She replaced David Baddiel as host of the BBC Four programme The Book Quiz in 2008 and hosted a BBC Two quiz show, A Question of Genius, which ran from 2009 to 2010.

In 2011 she was chosen to host a BBC food quiz show entitled A Question of Taste, pitting two teams of food fanatics against one another.

Wark participated in the 2011 series of Celebrity MasterChef where she reached the final and narrowly lost out to Phil Vickery.

On 1 January 2012, Wark appeared in a cameo role as herself in the revival of the BBC's Absolutely Fabulous.

In January 2013 she appeared in a special series of The Great British Bake Off, where she was awarded Star Baker.

Later that year, she made a cameo appearance in two episodes of The Politician's Husband which aired on BBC Two.

Wark has been visible and vocal in the media about her experience of menopause and helped to raise awareness of this aspect of women's health more widely.

In 2017 she made a BBC documentary 'Let's talk about the menopause' because she felt that women are still "shockingly ill-informed."

In 2018, Margarita Simonyan, the Russia Today journalist who interviewed the two Russian suspects of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal terminated an interview with Wark.

It came after Wark challenged "the manner of the interview" and asked if the interview didn't just reinforce the notion that RT was a 'propaganda tool of the Russian state.' Simonyan said Wark's questions seemed "like typical Western propaganda."

Since 2020, she has presented the BBC Radio 4 series The Reunion.

She has also, on occasion, presented Start the Week on BBC Radio 4.

In 2021, Wark was one of the main presenters of the BBC's election results coverage, alongside Huw Edwards.

She presented from Edinburgh with the programme covering results from all the UK elections that took place on Thursday 6 May 2021, including the 2021 Scottish Parliament election and local council elections in England.

On 19 October 2023 the BBC announced that Kirsty would be standing down as presenter of Newsnight after the next general election.