Jon Gaunt is a graduate of The University of Birmingham where he read Drama and Theatre Arts.
Upon graduating he formed a theatre company called Tic Toc which was based in his hometown of Coventry.
The company quickly grew and established itself as not only a major touring company but also as one of the biggest promoters at the Edinburgh Festival.
As the artistic Director of the company Jon wrote over twenty plays including Hooligans, which won a prestigious Edinburgh Fringe First and was transferred to the West End and subsequently filmed by Yorkshire TV.
Jon then secured commissions for plays and films from the BBC, YTV and the Birmingham Rep amongst others and also became a member of the Emmerdale script writing team for two years.
Alongside this he was responsible for promoting acts as varied as Julian Clary, Mike Myers, Jeremy Hardy, Frank Skinner and a host of other now household names at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where the company eventually ran seven theatres.
This combination of entrepreneurial vision and artistic endeavour characterises Jon`s career which culminated in him raising over a million pounds from both the private and the public sector to convert a disused and derelict bingo hall in Coventry into a thriving nightclub and arts centre called the Tic Toc Club, which won an Arts council award for inner city arts projects.
The company ran for ten years until finally after a long struggle going into administration in 2002. This experience didn’t drag Jon down in fact it inspired him to reinvent himself as a talk radio host and TV performer.
This rags to riches to rags and “riches” again journey is told in moving and amusing detail in Jon’s best selling autobiography, Undaunted, published by Virgin press. The book also chronicles Jon’s fractured childhood, his time in care and his subsequent difficult relationship and eventual reconciliation with his Policeman father.
Jon’s career in radio has been a rollercoaster ride in the truest sense of that often misused cliché!
Starting off in Coventry on the local BBC radio station Jon graduated to hosting the breakfast show within three months and subsequently worked on BBC WM where he still holds the record for the largest audience for his Saturday show.
He then spent five happy years as Breakfast phone in host on BBC Three Counties in Luton where he won three Sony Radio awards (the industry’s equivalent of the Oscars) in one night for his coverage of the closure of the Vauxhall factory.
From there Jon went on to BBC London where he hosted the prestigious mid morning phone, which is now presented by Vanessa Feltz.
Whilst he was at BBC London he was approached by Rebekah Wade of the Sun and asked whether he would like to be a columnist on Britain's best selling newspaper, a position he held for five years.
During this period he was also the host of the mid morning phone in show on talkSport and increased the audience massively until he was fired for calling a councillor a health Nazi for wanting to ban prospective foster parents from having children if they smoked.
Jon then launched SunTalk a digital Internet radio station on the Sun’s website and this station was awarded a British Press Award for Digital Innovation in 2010.
Throughout this period Jon remains a regular press reviewer for Sky News as well as appearing on programmes such as Vanessa, Newsnight, The Daily Politics, Question Time and Countdown.
He is also a regular contributor on the Jeremy Vine radio show on BBC Radio Two and various BBC Five Live programmes.
Jon has written articles and columns for many magazines and newspapers including The Daily Express, Square Mile Magazine and Public Service Europe.
He is also an accomplished after dinner speaker, MC and stand up act having performed on two sell out national one man tours which are based on his best selling book.
Upon graduating he formed a theatre company called Tic Toc which was based in his hometown of Coventry.
The company quickly grew and established itself as not only a major touring company but also as one of the biggest promoters at the Edinburgh Festival.
As the artistic Director of the company Jon wrote over twenty plays including Hooligans, which won a prestigious Edinburgh Fringe First and was transferred to the West End and subsequently filmed by Yorkshire TV.
Jon then secured commissions for plays and films from the BBC, YTV and the Birmingham Rep amongst others and also became a member of the Emmerdale script writing team for two years.
Alongside this he was responsible for promoting acts as varied as Julian Clary, Mike Myers, Jeremy Hardy, Frank Skinner and a host of other now household names at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where the company eventually ran seven theatres.
This combination of entrepreneurial vision and artistic endeavour characterises Jon`s career which culminated in him raising over a million pounds from both the private and the public sector to convert a disused and derelict bingo hall in Coventry into a thriving nightclub and arts centre called the Tic Toc Club, which won an Arts council award for inner city arts projects.
The company ran for ten years until finally after a long struggle going into administration in 2002. This experience didn’t drag Jon down in fact it inspired him to reinvent himself as a talk radio host and TV performer.
This rags to riches to rags and “riches” again journey is told in moving and amusing detail in Jon’s best selling autobiography, Undaunted, published by Virgin press. The book also chronicles Jon’s fractured childhood, his time in care and his subsequent difficult relationship and eventual reconciliation with his Policeman father.
Jon’s career in radio has been a rollercoaster ride in the truest sense of that often misused cliché!
Starting off in Coventry on the local BBC radio station Jon graduated to hosting the breakfast show within three months and subsequently worked on BBC WM where he still holds the record for the largest audience for his Saturday show.
He then spent five happy years as Breakfast phone in host on BBC Three Counties in Luton where he won three Sony Radio awards (the industry’s equivalent of the Oscars) in one night for his coverage of the closure of the Vauxhall factory.
From there Jon went on to BBC London where he hosted the prestigious mid morning phone, which is now presented by Vanessa Feltz.
Whilst he was at BBC London he was approached by Rebekah Wade of the Sun and asked whether he would like to be a columnist on Britain's best selling newspaper, a position he held for five years.
During this period he was also the host of the mid morning phone in show on talkSport and increased the audience massively until he was fired for calling a councillor a health Nazi for wanting to ban prospective foster parents from having children if they smoked.
Jon then launched SunTalk a digital Internet radio station on the Sun’s website and this station was awarded a British Press Award for Digital Innovation in 2010.
Throughout this period Jon remains a regular press reviewer for Sky News as well as appearing on programmes such as Vanessa, Newsnight, The Daily Politics, Question Time and Countdown.
He is also a regular contributor on the Jeremy Vine radio show on BBC Radio Two and various BBC Five Live programmes.
Jon has written articles and columns for many magazines and newspapers including The Daily Express, Square Mile Magazine and Public Service Europe.
He is also an accomplished after dinner speaker, MC and stand up act having performed on two sell out national one man tours which are based on his best selling book.
Multi award winning Talk radio Presenter and national newspaper columnist Jon Gaunt is also an entertaining speaker, awards host and conference facilitator.
JON`S SPEECHES
After Dinner Sporting
After working at both the Sun and talkSport I have met, talked and more importantly drank with some of Britain’s biggest sporting names and do I have stories to tell.
Does Alan Brazil really drink that much?
The day Rodney Marsh told me live on air the name of his after-shave!
The day England Captain John Terry confronted me about slagging him off in the Sun whilst I was drinking with Alan Brazil and Rod Stewart.
How I became best mates with Big Ron and just what was I doing cooking at a Barbie with Sir Ian Botham?
Was it every football fans dream to work at talkSport and was it like being in one big changing room!
Do your childhood sporting heroes actually match up to your expectations and no doubt as a life long Coventry fan I will have to mention the FA cup in 1987?
This is my Story.
Based on my book and my one man show this is a speech about how the knocks in my life, including my mum dying when I was 11, my dad abandoning me in a care home at 13, going bankrupt and getting the sack more times than Father Christmas has shaped me and my life.
About how, after failure and disappointment, you have two clear choices. One: wallow in self-pity and fall further into a pit of despair or two: drag yourself up and fight back.
All told with a smattering of jokes and amusing anecdotes that can be tailored to the audience hearing it. Including the day that I lost my virginity, the day the Sun offered me more money for one days work than my dad earned in a year and the day the Bailiffs refused to sell my pink and grey leather sofa, don’t ask!
Politics.
I’ve lost count of the times listeners or readers have asked me, “Oi Gaunty why don’t you stand to be Prime Minister?” to which I have always replied, often only half joking, “I can’t afford the wage cut!”
However the truth is I much prefer standing on the sidelines throwing bricks at the political hothouse that is Westminster than actually joining those Muppets and having to slavishly follow a party whip! (Not that kind of whip!). I subscribe to the theory that the mere desire to be a politician should be the one reason why we shouldn’t let someone become one and I know for a fact that the best way to tell if a politician is lying is to check if their lips are moving! It was me who first coined the phrase “the self-serving pigs of Westminster with their snouts in the trough”, long before the expenses scandal broke. Over the years I have met and interviewed every major politician and I have tales about the time David Blunket said he had to cut short an interview because he could see the PM was arriving and I asked how? The time I told David Cameron he wasn’t only born with a silver spoon in his mouth but a whole canteen of bloody cutlery and gave him a lesson on family allowance. The time George Osborne asked if he could call me Gaunty and I replied only if I can call you Gideon?! The time I introduced home secretary Jacquie Smith as Jacquie Spliff! And the numerous occasions when parties have asked me to stand as a candidate for them and my experiences on programmes such as Question Time, Sky News, and This Week. Just what did Andrew Neil whisper in my ear after I had a row with Michael Portillo? Why won’t Diane Abbot even look at me let alone speak to me before a show and just how many questions does the panel know before Question Time starts.
The Tabloid Press
I guess that I am in a pretty unique position as I have worked on the biggest selling tabloid and the nearest thing we have to a shock jock radio station in the UK.
Just who comes up with those headlines? How do you write a tabloid column? How much is truth and how much is lies and just how much do tabloid journalists earn and drink! How does a paper get put together, what exactly happens in conference and who are the Fleet Street characters I have met? Do I ever worry about meeting the people I have slagged off? What was it like when England Captain John Terry rang me up when I was at Rod Stewarts concert in Spain to have a go at me for saying he wasn’t fit to captain England? What’s the secret of getting people to phone a radio station? Who is the best and worst person I have ever interviewed.
Do I regret getting the sack for calling a councillor a Nazi and do we need regulation on the airwaves?
Political Correctness and the Death of Free Speech in the UK.
This is a subject that is close to my heart of course as I was sacked for expressing an opinion on air that didn’t cause any fuss when I wrote much worse in a national paper.
Our forefathers fought for freedom of speech and expression and lost their lives on the beaches of Normandy to protect it but now we live in a world where everyone has to think twice before saying what they really think. Don’t get me wrong I don’t believe that racism should be tolerated but the pendulum has swung too far the other way. And who’s to blame is it our politicians or Europe? Why isn’t the voice of the decent silent majority heard more often and why are we allowing our nation and our traditions and culture to be silenced? Fox hunting is banned on grounds of cruelty but Halal meat is now secretly used in school meals and many restaurants? People can burn Poppies and hurl foul insults at returning heroes but use of terms like extremist or moderate Muslim is verging on racism? Banter is banned in the workplace and you can be sacked for forwarding suggestive email.
When will this madness stop, probably when travellers and Gypsies win their case of unfair portrayal in Big Fat Gypsy Wedding!
After Dinner Sporting
After working at both the Sun and talkSport I have met, talked and more importantly drank with some of Britain’s biggest sporting names and do I have stories to tell.
Does Alan Brazil really drink that much?
The day Rodney Marsh told me live on air the name of his after-shave!
The day England Captain John Terry confronted me about slagging him off in the Sun whilst I was drinking with Alan Brazil and Rod Stewart.
How I became best mates with Big Ron and just what was I doing cooking at a Barbie with Sir Ian Botham?
Was it every football fans dream to work at talkSport and was it like being in one big changing room!
Do your childhood sporting heroes actually match up to your expectations and no doubt as a life long Coventry fan I will have to mention the FA cup in 1987?
This is my Story.
Based on my book and my one man show this is a speech about how the knocks in my life, including my mum dying when I was 11, my dad abandoning me in a care home at 13, going bankrupt and getting the sack more times than Father Christmas has shaped me and my life.
About how, after failure and disappointment, you have two clear choices. One: wallow in self-pity and fall further into a pit of despair or two: drag yourself up and fight back.
All told with a smattering of jokes and amusing anecdotes that can be tailored to the audience hearing it. Including the day that I lost my virginity, the day the Sun offered me more money for one days work than my dad earned in a year and the day the Bailiffs refused to sell my pink and grey leather sofa, don’t ask!
Politics.
I’ve lost count of the times listeners or readers have asked me, “Oi Gaunty why don’t you stand to be Prime Minister?” to which I have always replied, often only half joking, “I can’t afford the wage cut!”
However the truth is I much prefer standing on the sidelines throwing bricks at the political hothouse that is Westminster than actually joining those Muppets and having to slavishly follow a party whip! (Not that kind of whip!). I subscribe to the theory that the mere desire to be a politician should be the one reason why we shouldn’t let someone become one and I know for a fact that the best way to tell if a politician is lying is to check if their lips are moving! It was me who first coined the phrase “the self-serving pigs of Westminster with their snouts in the trough”, long before the expenses scandal broke. Over the years I have met and interviewed every major politician and I have tales about the time David Blunket said he had to cut short an interview because he could see the PM was arriving and I asked how? The time I told David Cameron he wasn’t only born with a silver spoon in his mouth but a whole canteen of bloody cutlery and gave him a lesson on family allowance. The time George Osborne asked if he could call me Gaunty and I replied only if I can call you Gideon?! The time I introduced home secretary Jacquie Smith as Jacquie Spliff! And the numerous occasions when parties have asked me to stand as a candidate for them and my experiences on programmes such as Question Time, Sky News, and This Week. Just what did Andrew Neil whisper in my ear after I had a row with Michael Portillo? Why won’t Diane Abbot even look at me let alone speak to me before a show and just how many questions does the panel know before Question Time starts.
The Tabloid Press
I guess that I am in a pretty unique position as I have worked on the biggest selling tabloid and the nearest thing we have to a shock jock radio station in the UK.
Just who comes up with those headlines? How do you write a tabloid column? How much is truth and how much is lies and just how much do tabloid journalists earn and drink! How does a paper get put together, what exactly happens in conference and who are the Fleet Street characters I have met? Do I ever worry about meeting the people I have slagged off? What was it like when England Captain John Terry rang me up when I was at Rod Stewarts concert in Spain to have a go at me for saying he wasn’t fit to captain England? What’s the secret of getting people to phone a radio station? Who is the best and worst person I have ever interviewed.
Do I regret getting the sack for calling a councillor a Nazi and do we need regulation on the airwaves?
Political Correctness and the Death of Free Speech in the UK.
This is a subject that is close to my heart of course as I was sacked for expressing an opinion on air that didn’t cause any fuss when I wrote much worse in a national paper.
Our forefathers fought for freedom of speech and expression and lost their lives on the beaches of Normandy to protect it but now we live in a world where everyone has to think twice before saying what they really think. Don’t get me wrong I don’t believe that racism should be tolerated but the pendulum has swung too far the other way. And who’s to blame is it our politicians or Europe? Why isn’t the voice of the decent silent majority heard more often and why are we allowing our nation and our traditions and culture to be silenced? Fox hunting is banned on grounds of cruelty but Halal meat is now secretly used in school meals and many restaurants? People can burn Poppies and hurl foul insults at returning heroes but use of terms like extremist or moderate Muslim is verging on racism? Banter is banned in the workplace and you can be sacked for forwarding suggestive email.
When will this madness stop, probably when travellers and Gypsies win their case of unfair portrayal in Big Fat Gypsy Wedding!
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Twitter