FOR PETE’S
TIM Vincent is returning to his roots with a play about Blue Peter.
The presenter – who hosted the kids’ TV series between 1993 and 1997 – has reunited a string of former presenters for an Edinburgh show.
Tim approached Valerie Singleton, Peter Purves, Mark Curry, Janet Ellis and Peter Duncan for his Once Seen On Blue Peter, which comes ahead of BP’s 60th anniversary in October.
They play versions of themselves at a fictional awards show and the result is an hour of gently-mocking humour.
Tim says: “I like to think of myself as the Swiss army knife of Blue Peter presenters.
“Someone who can turn his hand to anything.”
Fans of the Blue Peter’s beginnings will recall Lulu the elephant, who relieved herself twice on air and then dragged her handler through the mess in 1969.
“But what no-one knows,” reveals Tim, “is that particular show was recorded the day beforehand and the editor decided to run it the next day, including the incident with the elephant. The show taught me everything I know because you never knew if something was going to go wrong.”
After Blue Peter, Tim landed a job in New York, hosting the nightly show Access Hollywood for three years.
He is still a correspondent for the show and has met stars including Cher, Pierce Brosnan, Penelope Cruz and Halle Berry.
Passionate
And Tim, 45, reckons most stars could not be nicer, apart from Kanye West.
He says: “NBC did a Telethon, to benefit the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, which had caused catastrophic damage from central Florida to eastern Texas in 2005.
“Live on air, Kanye had a public meltdown about what he saw as the failings of the Bush administration in general and the president in particular.
“I interviewed him later for what had prompted his passionate rant. He just stared at me