“QUOTE ... UNQUOTE”
JUST SO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE DEALING WITH ...
NIGEL REES is a broadcaster and writer, probably best-known as deviser
and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s long-running Quote
... Unquote programme.
Born near Liverpool on 5 June 1944, Nigel went to the Merchant Taylors’
School, Crosby, and then took a degree in English at Oxford. He went straight into television with Granada
in Manchester and made his first TV appearances on local programmes in 1967
before moving to London as a freelance.
He reported for ITN’s News at Ten and then became involved in a wide range of programmes
for BBC Radio – news, current affairs, arts and entertainment – including two
years as co-presenter of the breakfast-time Today
programme on Radio 4 (1976-78).
Unusually, he has combined his broadcast presentation work with appearances in
comedy shows, notably BBC Radio’s Week
Ending (with David Jason and Bill Wallis), The Betty Witherspoon Show (with Ted Ray, Kenneth Williams and
Miriam Margolyes) and The Burkiss Way (with Chris Emmett and
Fred Harris), and in Harry Enfield and Chums on BBC TV.
Nigel Rees in the BBC Radio 4 garden at The
Pleasance during the 2003 Edinburgh Festival
Among other radio shows he has presented are: Twenty-Four Hours (BBC World Service 1972-9), Kaleidoscope (BBC Radio 4, 1973-5), Where Were You in ’62? (BBC Radio 2, 1983-4, also devised it) and Stop Press (BBC Radio 4, 1984-6).
He is the author of more than fifty books. Recent titles include, from Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Brewer’s Famous Quotations and from Collins, A Word In Your Shell-Like: 6,000 Curious & Everyday Phrases
Explained.
Nigel has been the President of the Johnson Society of Lichfield (2006/7) and
is a patron of the P.G. Wodehouse Society (
‘Nigel Rees is