Mark Radcliffe

Mark Radcliffe (born 29 June 1958) is an English radio broadcaster, musician and writer.

His father Philip (1932-2018) joined the BBC in Manchester as a news assistant from 2 December 1963, aged 31.

By 1967, his father was the producer of Look North in Manchester.

His father later worked in the press office of the University of Manchester from 1970 until 1996.

His father spoke Russian, and worked with the Great Britain–Russia Society, and later lived in Derbyshire.

Radcliffe was born in Bolton, Lancashire, and educated at Bolton School and the University of Manchester, where he studied English, American Studies and Classical Civilisation.

He stayed at the traditional all-male Woolton Hall, Manchester of the university at the Fallowfield Campus, where gowns and suits were worn at meal times, in the late 1970s; there were no exceptions.

He took an interest in music from a young age, playing drums in numerous bands while at school and university and into his working life.

His first job was assistant producer at Piccadilly Radio in 1979, producing documentaries, classical music and drama.

He is best known for his broadcasting work for the BBC, for which he has worked in various roles since the 1980s.

Radcliffe began his broadcasting career in local commercial radio in Manchester before a move to the national station BBC Radio 5, where he met and formed a partnership with Marc Riley, a former guitarist with the Fall.

Radcliffe's radio presenting career began in late 1982 at Piccadilly Radio, where he hosted a Friday night show called Cures For Insomnia.

He later hosted Transmission, an eclectic show playing local and nationally recognised new wave and post-punk bands as well as European avant-garde and electronic music.

Radcliffe's BBC Radio 1 career began in 1983 when he produced sessions at Maida Vale Studios for John Peel's show, and was the head of live music.

He moved back to Piccadilly Radio in 1985 as head of music.

He moved back to the BBC, producing arts shows for Radio 2, and Radio 5's '5 A Side'; as a producer he was the first to put Caroline Aherne on national radio as Mrs Merton.

Radio 1 had heard his programme on the former Radio 5, and offered him two weeks when Mark Goodier was off, and afterwards Radio 1 offered him a weekly one-hour show on Mondays.

Radcliffe came to prominence as a DJ on BBC Radio 5's Hit the North from 28 August 1990, but also appeared on other shows such as Cult Radio.

In 1991 he moved to BBC Radio 1, closely followed by Riley with whom, under the moniker Mark and Lard, he worked for 11 years on the station.

The pair's stint on Radio 1 included a brief and opinion-dividing spell on the flagship Radio 1 Breakfast and a subsequent afternoon slot show that garnered three prestigious Sony Radio Academy Awards.

In 1991, he started presenting the one-hour Monday evening show Out on Blue Six.

He took over from Nicky Campbell on 28 October 1993 with the arts programme The Guest List on Thursdays; on this programme Radcliffe often ridiculed the style of Campbell's former evening show.

When offered the slot Radcliffe said that he 'didn't want to play Billy Joel all night', as he claimed that Campbell had done.

Radcliffe would refer to the head of Radio 1 (Matthew Bannister) as 'Roger Bannister'.

Also in 1993, Radcliffe presented Skyman, an odd show that he presented in character as a visiting alien, and all the records played were space-related.

This half-hour show aired immediately before Out on Blue Six on Monday evenings.

His most famous work was as part of the act Mark and Lard (with Marc "The Boy Lard" Riley) on Radio 1.

The duo began in a 10 pm – midnight slot, the graveyard shift, on Mondays to Thursdays in October 1993.

Mark and Lard hosted a show of unprecedented variety, incorporating poetry readings from regular guest Ian McMillan, off the wall, irreverent comedy, bizarre quizzes 'Fish or Fowl', 'Bird or Bloke', 'Bard or Blake' (amongst others), and a playlist that rivalled John Peel in eclecticism.

In 1995 he lived in Heaton Mersey.

He married Bella Sharp on Saturday 19 April 1997 in Cheshire; his 27 year old old wife, from Hampshire, was an assistant at Granada TV.

When the Mark and Lard duo left BBC Radio 1 in 2004, Radcliffe joined BBC Radio 2 and has also presented various TV shows for the BBC, including its coverage of the Glastonbury Festival.

He remains a presenter on BBC Radio 2, where he presents the weekly programme The Folk Show.

On BBC Radio 6 Music, he co-hosts the weekend breakfast show with Stuart Maconie; they previously co-presented the weekday afternoon show on the same channel, and before that the evening show on Radio 2.

As of 2007, he lived in Knutsford, Cheshire; with three daughters (one from his first marriage), and became a grandfather in October 2008.

Nearly twenty years later, in 2009, he briefly stood in as a presenter on BBC Radio 5 Live, the station that replaced it, to cover Simon Mayo's afternoon show.

In July 2011, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Bolton.

On 3 October 2018, he announced on his BBC Radio 2 show that he had "cancerous tongue and lymph node issues" and he would take a break from his radio broadcasting for a while.

Radcliffe returned to the show on 13 February 2019.

During his student years, Radcliffe was a member of a number of bands, including a short stint as the drummer for the band Skrewdriver which he left before their later transformation into a white power group.