Stuart Maconie

Stuart is a prolific, popular and extremely highly regarded TV and radio presenter, journalist, columnist and best-selling author. He is on BBC Radio 6 Music (with Mark Radcliffe) every weekend morning between 8 and 11am.

His latest book, The Nanny State Made Me (Ebury Press) examines the positive impact of the Welfare State through the prism of his sixties and seventies childhood as well interviews with the countless beneficiaries of its work. He looks at its gradual dismantling and the effect that its rise and fall and (hopeful) rise has had on the nation we are now. He is currently working on a revised last chapter to reflect events since March 2020.

In 2017, he retraced the Jarrow march, in real time, to mark its 80th anniversary. The book of his walk, The Long Road from Jarrow spent five weeks in The Sunday Times Best-Seller list, and The Observer said 'He is as funny as Bryson and as wise as Orwell'. His other books include the hit love letter to the north, Pies and Prejudice; Adventures on the High Teas; The Pie At Night, and The People's Songs, which accompanies the Radio 2 series of the same name, currently being repeated on Sunday evenings.

Stuart loves a quiz, and is a Mastermind Champion, scoring their highest celebrity score answering questions on Modern British Poetry from 1900. He's on the North of England team on Radio 4's Brain of Britain, hosts the new Radio 4 quiz My Generation and has triumphed in Pointless Celebrities on two occasions.

He is a champion ice skater and once shared a van with Napalm Death.