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| JAMIE
THEAKSTON ON THE SEARCH |
Jamie
Theakston seems to be intent on cornering the entire broadcasting market
for himself. On radio, he's presented talk shows, sport shows, and is
host of the Breakfast Show on Heart FM. On TV, he's presented music
shows, children's TV, sports programmes, chat shows and light
entertainment. He's also acted in dramas, sitcoms and comedies, when
he's not been appearing on stage in the West End.
But apparently that's not enough. For his latest TV venture, Theakston
is not only presenting it, but producing it as well, from his own
concept, and made by his own production company. And we're not talking
about a couple of cameramen in the cosy confines of a studio either. For
The Search, his first-ever production, Theakston has opted for a hugely
ambitious global treasure hunt involving five continents, ten
contestants, a mountain of research, and a vast retinue of staff. It
will transmit as seven hour-long episodes on Channel 4 from January 7th.
He's just finished four months' filming, zipping back and forth across
the world while also recording his radio show, clocking up enough air
miles to last him a lifetime. He could be forgiven for appearing to be a
zombie on Valium after such an exhausting schedule, but is instead an
energised, enthusiastic and affable interviewee as he discusses his
varied career, his hopes for The Search, and why he didn't cover himself
in glory on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
You've been on our TV screens for about 18 years now, haven't you?
I don't think it's that long! The first show I did was called The O
Zone, and I was probably about 22, 23, and I'm now 35. So it's about 12
years. God, you terrified me for a moment there. 18 years indeed! Then I
went straight from that to doing Live and Kicking. That was about 10
years ago. |
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How
did you get started? Had you always wanted to get into TV?
Well, I'd always wanted to be an actor when I was younger, and I joined
the National Youth Theatre when I was about 14. I'd come up to London
from Brighton to do plays with them. And then I rather than go to drama
school I bottled it, and did other things for a couple of years. And
then I sort of drifted back into it when I was at University, when I
started reading out the traffic bulletins for GLR and Radio Five. And
then I started doing more and more radio, and I started doing sports and
various other bits and pieces, and just when I'd decided that was what I
was going to do full-time, the TV thing came along. I was asked if I'd
ever thought of doing TV by the editor of what was then called
Children's Presentation. He looked after The O Zone, I did a couple of
interviews for them, and that was it, really.
You've also kept up with the radio. Do you prefer the element of
independence you get from radio, where the show is more shaped by the
presenter?
Yeah, that's a really fun thing. The breakfast show that I'm doing for
Heart I love doing. It's just become part of my life now. People say
'Oh, what's it like getting up at 4:30am?' - well, that just feels like
part of what I do. It doesn't seem in any way odd.
Does that mean that you go to bed at 8:30pm in the week?
Not quite. I'm normally in bed by 10:30.
Do you make up for it at weekends?
Yeah. Friday nights can be a little messy. I tend to be like a coiled
spring on Fridays.
You've also latterly come back to the acting. Is that something
you're going to stick with?
Yeah, it's something I love doing, and something that I will do more of.
It tends to be quite time-intensive. I wouldn't be able to do a play in
the West End and also do the radio show, because they exist on opposite
ends of time spectrum. But it's something that I love doing, it's a very
different and unique experience, there's a lot more craft involved. So I
would certainly do more, but there's nothing planned at the moment.
Was there a risk that you were setting yourself up for a fall with
the media, as a recognised presenter crossing over into acting?
The media thing I didn't really care about, but it's certainly tricky
when you go onstage to persuade someone that you're someone else, if
they know who you are. Because essentially you're dressing up and
pretending to be someone else, so you have to overcome that sense of 'Oh
look, there's Jamie Theakston on stage'. You want them to say 'Oh, look
there's…' whatever character it is you're playing. But I was only
returning to something that I'd done before, so I didn't feel under that
much pressure. And by sticking to the theatre, I think that made it a
bit easier for me. If I'd have jumped into a higher profile TV show, it
might have been more of a problem.
You did Rock Profiles with Matt Lucas and David Walliams several
years ago when they were starting out. You're probably single-handedly
responsible for their success, aren't you?
[Laughs] I've told them this; reminded them of this many times in the
recent past! They were actually in the National Youth Theatre with me.
They were a couple of years below me there, so that's where we first
came across each other.
You were on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire earlier this year. How did
you get on?
Disastrously! Rather embarrassingly, I told the girl I was playing
alongside, and told her not to worry, because if there were any sports
questions, I'd be absolutely fine. Only to be thrown a question about a
relatively obscure Rugby League side, Leigh Centurions. So sadly I let
her down.
In all of your TV work, which show has been your favourite?
Well, I think I'm most proud of The Search, the one we've just finished.
It's consumed the last six months of my life. I first came up with the
idea maybe two years ago. The idea came from a book that I'd always
loved when I was a kid, called Masquerade, by a chap called Kit
Williams. He was a jeweller and an illustrator, among other things, and
he buried a golden hare that he'd made. He buried it somewhere in the
UK, and the book was a series of illustrated codes that essentially led
to the whereabouts of the golden hare. So that was essentially how I
came up with the idea for the show.
So you're not just presenting - this is really your baby?
Yeah. I set up a production company, and this is our first commission.
My first production credit, I guess.
Explain a bit more about the concept behind it.
Essentially it's a global treasure hunt. Ten contestants have to solve
various historical clues, and the clues will eventually lead them to a
hidden treasure worth £50,000. That's the basic overall concept.
How did you choose the people to take part in it?
Casting the contestants was actually one of the most difficult things of
all. We saw hundreds of people. We whittled them down to about 50 or so,
we sent those 50 away on these weekend away-day things, where we got
them solving problems, and we filmed them, and they told us about
themselves, and from that 50 we put on tape, we got down to ten. They're
essentially selected not only for their ability to do the show, to
figure out some really pretty tricky answers, but also they're all
experts in different fields. We've got an art historian, we've got a
mathematician, we've got an Egyptologist, that sort of thing. They'll
have to utilise their expert knowledge in order to solve these clues. So
they're not just randomly selected, they've all been chosen for a
reason.
So where, geographically, does the programme take you?
We start off in Europe, we make our way down through Egypt, through
India, and then through Central America and South America.
You really invented this show so you could have a nice holiday,
didn't you?
That's pretty much it, yes. It became slightly embarrassing when we'd go
to places I'd never been. I'd never been to Central America, to India,
to South America, so whenever we'd arrive I'd be all excited, and I
think the crew began to wonder if I'd just picked these places because
I'd never been to them. But I assure you the reality of it is that the
places we visit are very much a part of the show, because each show
follows a historical spine. So, for instance, in France our contestants
are following the mythical grail trail from Paris down to the South of
France. In Peru, they're following the Inca Trail, trying to find the
gold that was supposedly hidden from the Conquistadors in the 1750s. It
takes them from Cusco across the Andes to Machu Picchu. In Egypt, there
are certain tombs that they uncover that have never been filmed in, that
have hieroglyphs that no-one's ever been able to decipher. They have to
try and decipher them. So they're not just randomly carrying out random
tasks – there are proper reasons for where they are and what they're
doing.
How long did the filming last?
We probably started filming about four months ago, and out of that, it
was probably about two months of actual filming. It wasn't always easy
for the contestants to take that amount of time off work, so we had to
exclude some of them because they couldn't make that sort of commitment.
When we were filming, it was like a sort of global circus rolling around
the globe. It's the biggest production I've ever been involved with. We
had ten camera crews, there's the contestants, and the second unit
looking after the contestants, all the production team. It became a
running joke that anyone who was stuck behind us in check-in at
airports, their faces just fell, because it would take us so long to get
all of our kit onto planes. Often we'd charter a single plane, for all
of us, but there were times when we had to get domestic flights.
It all sounds pretty ambitious for your first production.
Stupid, really! I'm not sure our production company will make another
show for another 12 months. I think we're all pretty much exhausted,
really. And so much of the show was about reacting to circumstances.
We'd be out on the top of Mount Sinai in Egypt, and we'd have to try and
rejig stuff and do it on the hoof, as it were, sometimes in quite
extreme conditions. If you're in the jungle and something goes wrong,
you've got to get around it. It's been a real challenge, both for the
production and the contestants.
And how would you have done if you'd been one of the contestants?
Would you have been a valuable contributor to the team?
[Laughs] No, I think I'd have been absolutely rubbish. I'd do all right
now, of course, because I know all the answers. But I think that's
called cheating.
The Search is on Channel 4 on Sundays from 7th January at 9.00 pm.
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