Jon Culshaw

Jon Culshaw

Date of birth: 02-06-1968
Jon Culshaw's radio career began in hospital radio in his home town of Ormskirk, Lancashire, landing his first professional job was at Red Rose Radio in Preston in 1987. He went on to work at Pennine Radio, Radio Wave in Blackpool and Hull's Viking FM, where a receptionist persuaded him to go on stage with his impressions.

In 1993, Culshaw won a talent search run on Steve Wright's Radio One show, beating 8,000 candidates. It led to a job on Spitting Image, voicing about 40 characters, and Culshaw now boasts 350 impersonations, including Ozzy Osbourne, Tom Baker, Russell Crowe and Michael Parkinson.

His big break came when he made national headlines for a 1998 Capital Radio stunt in which he successfully called Downing Street and go through to Prime Minister Tony Blair while pretending to be Tory leader William Hague, and engaged him in a lengthy conversation.

In 2000, he starred in the Radio 4 ensemble series Dead Ringers, and soon became its main star. That year, the programme won the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Radio Programme, and in 2001 scooped the Sony award and the British Comedy Award for best radio comedy. The radio show ran for ten series, plus several specials, then transferred to TV in 2002. Seven series had been made as of 2007.

In 2001-2 Culshaw had a programme on ITV called Alter Ego, in which he interviewed celebrities while simultaneously impersonating them. In early 2004, his own show, The Impressionable Jon Culshaw, was commissioned for ITV One, and in 2005, he was a contestant on Comic Relief does Fame Academy. In 2006, he took over BBC One's long-running Commercial Breakdown show, airing odd and funny adverts from around the world.

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Cast revealed for Channel 4's Partygate

Jon Culshaw is Boris Johnson, among a raft of familiar comedy names

Jon Culshaw will provide the voice of  Boris Johnson in Channel 4’s new factual drama  Partygate.

He joins a cast of familiar comedy actors in the show, which contrasts the goings-on in Downing Street during the Covid pandemic with the hardship and sacrifice being experienced across the rest of the country.

It will revolve around two fictional special advisors: Grace Greenwood – to be played by Georgie Henley from The Chronicles of Narnia – and Annabel D’acre, portrayed by W1A’s Ophelia Lovibond 

Also in the cast are Phil Daniels (Quadrophenia), Rebecca Humphries (Ten Percent), Hugh Skinner (The Windsors), Charlotte Richie (Ghosts), Craig Parkinson (Line of Duty), Tom Durant-Pritchard (The Windsors), Anthony Calf (New Tricks), Alice Lowe (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch), Kimberly Nixon (Fresh Meat), Alice Orr-Ewing (This Is Going to Hurt), Naomi Battrick (Jamestown) and Edwin Flay.

 Channel 4 says the show is ‘based on meticulous research of real events inside Downing Street’ and gives as the official logline: ‘Karaoke, suitcases of wine, ambushing cake... this factual drama tells the story of Covid from inside 10 Downing Street as staff kicked back at lockdown-breaching parties.’  

UPDATE: Channel 4 has now released a trailer for the show:

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Published: 21 Sep 2023

Ringers is dead

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Dead Ringers star Jon Culshaw is to star in a new primetime…
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Agent

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