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Martin Kelner | |
|---|---|
 Kelner in 1982 | |
| Born | Martin Barry Kelner |
| Career | |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Website | http://www.martinkelner.com |
Martin Barry Kelner is a British journalist, author, comedian, singer, actor and TV presenter, whose primary career is in radio presenting. He has spent over 40 years hosting radio shows, mostly for the BBC, in particularRadio Leeds. He has been regularly accompanied throughout his career by comedy sidekick Edouard Lapaglie.
Kelner studied Arts and Social Studies atStrathclyde University in Glasgow, but dropped out. He was employed as a reporter on theWestern Daily Press inBristol and for theOxford Mail. He then joined theCentral Office of Information, for whom he worked in Bristol,Lambeth,South London and inBirmingham.
Martin Kelner moved toRadio Hallam inSheffield to begin his career in radio. He started reading the breakfast show news before moving on to his own late night show. He spent a brief spell at London'sLBC andManchester'sPiccadilly Radio, before moving toLeeds in 1981 and the fledglingRadio Aire.
He left Radio Aire in late 1982, and worked forYorkshire TV for a time on a programme calledCalendar It's The Weekend. He was also a co-presenter onBBC Breakfast. Other television excursions for Kelner includeBrainwave, a daytimequiz show andPick of the Week.
In 1984 Kelner joined theBBC. He initially presented the weekday early show onBBC Radio 2 in September and October 1984, and then presented his own Saturday night show on the same station from 6 July 1985 until 24 March 1990, also returning to the early show for two stints during 1985. He fronted his own Saturday afternoon show on Radio 2 from 1 October 1994 to 23 March 1996. He also did many stand-ins for regular presenters on the network, peaking in the mid-1990s when he regularly deputised forSarah Kennedy on the weekday early show (both when she sat in forTerry Wogan and when she was on holiday herself) and also sat in forKen Bruce andJohn Dunn. He also presented editions of theRadio 2 Arts Programme from the north of England, and a programme calledLet It Be... Please! featuring bad or embarrassing cover versions ofthe Beatles' songs. He then fell out of favour at the national station, presenting his last Radio 2 show sitting in for Sarah Kennedy on 29 November 1996.
At the same time as he was on Radio 2, he was also presenting a local radio late-night show from theRadio Leedsstudios and broadcast across theBBC Night Network in thenorth, on which he first gave airtime to radio comedy sketches fromCaroline Aherne. She portrayed the Mrs Merton character on his radio show ad-libbing conversations with Kelner for around eight years. He also introduced Aherne into network broadcasting on Radio 2 and the originalBBC Radio 5, where he presented the programmeFive Aside for the station's opening months in 1990.
He returned to Manchester to present the breakfast show on100.4 Jazz FM, where he introduced another great comic talent to the public in the shape ofJake Yapp's Dora Dale, with whom Martin produced the hitBBC Radio 7 comedy show,Pleased To Meet You. This show was nominated for aSony National Radio Award on 28 March 2007 in the category of Best Comedy Programme.
Until October 2006, Kelner presented the Friday and Saturday late show at the weekends onBBC Radio Humberside,BBC Radio York, BBC Radio Leeds andBBC Radio Sheffield.
Other stations he has worked for includeBBC Thames Valley FM,BBC Radio Cleveland,Pennine Radio,BBC Radio 5 Live,TalkSport,BBC Radio Manchester,Real Radio Yorkshire andMansfield 103.2 FM.
From 2006 until 2021 he presented his own podcast, thePiss Poor Podcast, accompanied for the most part by Edouard Lapaglie. He also appears on BBC Radio 5 Live as a regular panellist onFighting Talk (twice finishing as series runner up and twice winning the series championship, in 2013 and 2019), and has contributed to Chart The Week onRichard Bacon's programme. His most regular radio slot had been the BBC Radio LeedsBreakfast Show which he co-presented Monday to Thursday from 6:30am to 9:00am, but he was moved to the lunchtime slot in November 2012.
Due to a change in direction of the station, Kelner left Radio Leeds again, presenting his last show on 18 March 2016.[1]
On 2 February 2018, Kelner joined theDAB stationTalkRadio, hosting weekend mornings from 1am to 5am.
Kelner's journalism includes a weekly column forThe Guardian, "Screen Break", which took a lighthearted look at the world of sport on TV, and a fortnightly column about radio. "Screen Break" finished on 31 December 2012.[2] He writes occasional travel pieces forThe Mail on Sunday, and has written forThe Independent, of which his brotherSimon Kelner was executive editor. Kelner began writing for theRacing Post at the beginning of 2013.
Other publications he has written for includeGQ,Men's Health,Later (now defunct), RCME,The Observer, Land Rover Owner magazine,You magazine, andPublic Servant, the local and national government journal. He also has contributed to theYouGov website, and wrote television previews for theDaily Mail around 1994/95. He has posted humorous product reviews on Amazon.[3]
His first book, about the outer suburbs of show business, was calledWhen Will I Be Famous?. His second book,Sit Down and Cheer, looked at the history of sport on British television.[4]
Kelner's daughter,Martha, is a journalist.[5]
in the summer of 2013, Kelner was diagnosed withfibromatosis; he later had surgery to remove asarcoma from his abdomen and was cared for atSt James Hospital,Leeds. He was later treated at the hospital'sintensive treatment unit for a week, and returned to his home inWakefield for further recovery. In his blog, Kelner noted that it would be early 2014 until he could fully "return to professional life".[6] He resumed his column inThe Racing Post (at first on a semi-regular basis) and BBC Radio 5 Live later announced his return toFighting Talk on 2 November. By mid-January he had resumed his lunchtime programme on BBC Radio Leeds.
| Preceded by | BBC Radio Five Live Fighting Talk Champion of Champions 2012/13 | Succeeded by |
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