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Radio and Television
A household name in Britain for thirty years and long-time
face of Music TV and Children’s TV with the BBC, Mike has
been voted National Broadcaster of the Year ten times and
has made history by being the only person to have presented
the breakfast show on three national radio stations. He has
hosted popular music, classical music and spoken word
programmes with equal ease and remains one of the most
recognisable faces in the UK and one of the most familiar
voices on radio. He is currently one of the most popular
paper reviewers on Sky News.
In December 2009 he won the prestigious Services to Music
award at the Malta Music Awards.
Musicals
Mike has written eight successful stage musicals as well as
performing in one for a long and highly-acclaimed run on the
West End stage.
Many distinguished actors, actresses and performers have
been involved in his musicals including Jeremy Irons, John
Wells, Cliff Richard, Nyree Dawn Porter, Anton Rogers, Brian
Glover, Colin Baker. His producers include Andrew Lloyd
Webber, Bill Kenwright, That’ll Be The Day and Apollo
Leisure.
Songwriting
Mike has written songs that have been recorded by dozens of
different artists, including Cliff Richard, David Essex, Leo
Sayer, Gene Pitney, Paul Young, Justin Hayward, Alvin
Stardust, Steve Harley, Donovan, Colin Blunstone, Kym
Mazelle, Jon Anderson, Marc Almond and Don McLean.
Following the Tsunami disaster he put together a single for
the charity, enlisting the likes of The Bee Gees, Cliff
Richard, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Boy George, Steve
Winwood, Russell Watson and Jon Anderson to sing on it. He
also pulled in an all-star backing group in former Rolling
Stone Bill Wyman on bass, Rick Wakeman on synth, Kenney
Jones from the Who on percussion, Gary Moore on guitar and
members of The Beach Boys and America on backing vocals. The
song, Grief Never Grows Old reached No 4 in the chart and is
still featured on some 2,500,000 web sites.
He has also had his material recorded by The Kings College
Choir, The Eton College Choir, The Rodolfus Choir and the
London Community Gospel Choir.
His Morning March recorded by HM Band of the Royal Marines
was included on two best-selling albums alongside many
legendary classical composers such as Beethoven, Strauss,
Tchaikowsky and Schubert.
As a songwriter Mike’s collaborations include some of
history’s greatest lyricists, including Betjeman,
Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Kipling,
Brooke and WH Auden.
His other writing collaborations include Andrew Lloyd
Webber, Albert Hammond, Cliff Richard and Donovan.
Words & Music, Mike’s album with Sir John Betjeman, was
released for Betjeman’s centenary.
Books
As co-author with Tim Rice and Paul Gambaccini of the
Guinness Book of Hit Singles and subsequent titles, he had a
number one best-selling book whose sales went on to total
millions and become Guinness’s second best-selling book
after The Guinness Book of Records. He has written 35 books
in all, including biographies, music, and poetry. His
currently available tomes include Forever England, a
biography of Rupert Brooke, Hodder’s best-selling 100
Favourite Poems and 100 Favourite Humorous Poems, Major to
Minor [The history of the songwriter in Britain and America
over the last 200 years], Inspirations, the uniquely
conceptual poetry collection New Poems for Old Paintings,
Read’s Musical Reciter and The South Coast Beat Scene of the
1960’s.
Films
During the 90’s, Mike was commissioned to write the music
for the Children’s Film Unit Film, How’s Business, and with
Simon May wrote the title song for Midsummer Films release
Caught In The Act, which received the Jury award of
Excellence at the Laguna Festival in the USA in 1996. He has
also written several film scripts, including Forever
England, about the life and times of Rupert Brooke, a film
on pirate radio, Radio Cool, which is and packed with great
60’s music, a comedy Fly Me To The Moon, Wenceslas, and
Great Expectations. The latter is now funded and looks like
being one of the great British musicals in the tradition of
Oliver.
In 2007 he appeared as himself in Midsomer Murders and as
Mickey Taylor in the psychological thriller Inside Out, also
co-writing several songs for the soundtrack.
Art
Between the autumn of 2007 and the spring of 2009 he has had
four exhibitions of his ground-breaking ‘Choc Art,’ a
totally new concept using the medium of chocolate in various
forms.
Miscellaneous
For seven years Mike was the Chairman of the Rupert Brooke
Literary Society which he co-founded in 1999 and is now a
vice president of the Society. He has created the country’s
first Brooke museum at Grantchester and edited two Brooke
magazines a year from 1999-2007.
He is extremely busy as vice-president of The Heritage
Foundation and has helped the Foundation and President Robin
Gibb, raise almost one and a half million pounds towards a
permanent memorial in London to Bomber Command. In the last
year he has been involved in the erection of blue plaques
for Peter Cook, Keith Moon and Wendy Richard and Kenneth
Williams. He has also hosted tribute lunches for Leslie
Phillips, PJ Proby, Keith Moon, Peter Cook and Wendy Richard
on behalf of the Foundation.
He has worked for many other different charities over the
years including The Variety Club of Great Britain, The
Shooting Star Children’s Hospice, Nordoff Robins and The Red
Cross, as well as raising money from his stage shows for
Children with Leukaemia and The Royal Marsden.
A long-time patron of The Cliff Richard Tennis Foundation
Mike also raised £70,000 for them in one hit with his money
from I’m A Celebrity.
He has won several trophies for tennis and cricket and
regularly travels to support Bury FC.
Mike has spoken and performed at several Conservative party
conferences and for some months was one of the front-runners
for London Mayor.
An ambassador abroad, he has recently spoken on such varied
topics as Politics, The Olympics, Great Britain, Music and
Literature in such places as Hawaii, Jamaica, San Francisco,
Acapulco, Norway, Mexico many of the Caribbean Islands and
various Mediterranean countries.
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