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Hire TV Personalities and Presenters

These are just some of the TV personalities and after dinner speakers you can book through the Neil Drover Agency.

Dougie Donnelly, Andy Cameron, Angus Simpson, Des Clarke, Jackie Bird, Hazel Irvine, Cathy McDonald, Dougie Vipond, Viv Lumsden and Carol Smillie.

Dougie Donnelly

Dougie Donnelly bookings Television Sports Presenter & After Dinner Speaker

Dougie Donnelly is one of the BBC's top television sports presenters with over 20 years experience of live broadcasting from the country's major sporting occasions.

He was the first Scot to present Grandstand, in 1993, while Athens 2004 will mark his sixth Olympic Games, during which time he has become only the third BBC commentator to have "done the double" of a British gold medal in both Summer and Winter Games. His was the voice which described both Stephanie Cook's modern pentathlon gold in Sydney and Great Britain's women curlers, who won gold so memorably in Salt Lake City.

In addition to his Olympic experiences, Dougie has worked on 2 World Cups, 3 Commonwealth Games, 8 US Masters, 15 Open Championships and no fewer than 27 consecutive Scottish Cup Finals!

Dougie has been the face of BBC Sport Scotland since 1978, where football is his main responsibility. Network viewers will also know him well through his long time involvement with golf and snooker.

A former radio deejay and twice Scottish Radio Personality of The Year, Dougie is a law graduate and a popular, humorous after-dinner speaker who has entertained a wide variety and mixture of audiences everywhere from a North Sea Oil Platform to the House of Lords!

His after-dinner performances rely heavily on his broadcasting experiences and the personalities he has encountered. At corporate golf events his anecdotes include his experiences of working with some of the biggest names in world golf: Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Seve Ballesteros and his long time friends, Colin Montgomerie and Lee Westwood, to name just a few.

His versatility has been reflected with 2 chat show series for BBC Scotland, including a one-off special "Connolly with Donnelly" in which Billy reminisced about the early days of their friendship, when Dougie used to book him for the University Folk Club for a generous fee of £40!

Dougie has also presented quiz shows for both BBC And ITV, and recent TV appearances include "The Weakest Link", "Ready Steady Cook", "Banzai" and "The Games".

His rapport with major sporting figures has led to Dougie being asked to write and direct dozens of top-selling videos and DVDs - including biographies of Ally McCoist, Paul Gascoigne, Gavin Hastings and many others.

Nominated in 2003 for The Royal Television Society Sports Presenter of the Year, Dougie will also be honoured in October 2004 with a tribute dinner from The Variety Club of Scotland.

Married with three daughters, Dougie lives in his native Glasgow, enjoys food and wine, travelling, and playing and speaking at corporate golf days across the UK.

Andy Cameron

Comedian

Andy Cameron Bookings Andy Cameron is undoubtedly the most popular comedy star in Scotland. Appearing regularly in theatres, hotels and cabaret venues throughout the country.

Andy continues to entertain audiences in every facet of the entertainment industry, including television where at present he can be seen in Scottish television's popular weekly series 'High Road' playing the part of Chic Cherry, the cheeky jack of all trades.

For 15 years Andy presented radio Scotland's most popular show, 'Andy Cameron's Sunday Joint', and apart from his own TV shows for both BBC & STV, Andy has guested on national TV.

He is the recipient of the great Scots people award from the Daily Record and the Scottish radio industries and was voted entertainment personality of the year.

Andy was delighted to be invited by the Borderline Theatre Company to star in their Edinburgh festival production of 'the guid sodjer schweik'. He received rave notices for his performance and the play won a coveted Edinburgh Evening News award. Following the festival the play toured throughout Scotland with great success, and for Andy this proved to be a great personal achievement.

Above all Andy's talent is making people laugh and in this he is second to none. As a stand up comedian and after dinner entertainer Andy Cameron is one of the best ever.

Angus Simpson

Broadcaster and corporate presenter Angus Simpson has established himself as one of the best-known faces (and voices!) in Scotland.

As the longest-serving anchorman of Scottish Television's flagship news/magazine programme 'Scotland Today', he consistently emerged as the station's most popular male presenter.

Today, Angus is 'On The Move' with SAGA 105.2fm - presenting a fast-paced weekday drive-time show at Scotland's newest radio station.

As a television broadcaster, Angus has also worked for Grampian Television, Border Television and GMTV, presenting such shows as Summer Discovery, Border Live and Scottish Passport.

As a corporate presenter, he has numerous prestigious events under his belt, such as 'The Lord Provost of Glasgow's Burns Supper', 'The Strathclyde Police Annual Force Dinner' , Look Who’s Talking’ at the Theatre Royal, ‘Crimestoppers Scotland Awards' and 'The Cash For Kids Carol Spectacular' at Glasgow's Clyde Auditorium.

Des Clarke

Des Clarke is one of the UK's most exciting rising stars. He has made a name for himself as both a highly successful comedian and as one of television's hottest young presenters.

Des Clarke Comedian Thanks to his sparkling wit and enthusiastic presenting skills, Des beat thousands of hopefuls to be asked to host ITV1's Saturday morning live programme SM:TV Live. This weekly 2 hour broadcast showcased his abilities both as a comedian and presenter, including character sketches, celebrity interviews and comic monologues. He has now made the breakthrough into prime time television as anchor of BBC 1 Scotland's live Children in Need coverage for the last three years and hosts his own weekly show on BBC Radio Scotland, Des Clarke’s Friday Feeling.

Des has recently featured onscreen presenting Club Cupid, the hit entertainment dating show for Scottish Television. He is also making his mark as a sports broadcaster appearing regularly on BBC1 Scotland’s flagship football programmes, Sportscene and Offside as well as Talksport and Radio 5 Live. Recent presenting work has included Invention SOS for Discovery, Sky One's youth show Whatever and How To Purchase Abroad on Overseas Property TV.

Des was asked to present the backstage celebrity coverage at the MTV Europe Awards and T in the Park. He has had the opportunity to interview some of the world's biggest music and film stars, including Beyonce, Robbie Williams, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Kylie and Christina Aguilera.

In addition, he has gained widespread industry recognition for his radio work, winning the prestigious X-TRAX British Radio Awards 2004 - Presenter Of The Year for his weekday morning show on Beat 106 FM, The Beat 106 Breakfast Show. He’s just finished recording BBC Radio Scotland’s new comedy show, Queen Victoria Ate My Hamster and is a regular guest on Gabby Logan’s Radio 5 Live show, The Umpire Strikes Back. Des was also part of the SONY Award nominated North by North North sketch show.

His show stealing spot on The Weakest Link: Stand Up Comedy Special was a huge hit and he featured as a regular cast member for the third series of BBC1 Scotland's cult comedy Live Floor Show, after guest starring in the previous two series.

Des has already performed his own full length sell-out comedy shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Glasgow International Comedy Festival in recent years. He has played all over the world, with appearances at the New York, Adelaide, Dublin and Dubai Comedy Festivals under his belt.

Des is also well known as a celebrity newspaper columnist, and as an accomplished After Dinner Speaker.

Jackie Bird

Jackie Bird is one of Scotland’s most popular and recognised television personalities. She presents BBC Scotland's nightly regional news and magazine programme 'Reporting Scotland'. Jackie was part BBC’s marathon Millennium broadcast ‘UK 2000’ where she presented the OB from the Shetlands, including coverage of the first sunset of the old millennium seen in the UK, she then hosted BBC Scotland’s Hogmanay show for 2000/2001.

She has presented location reports on the BBC 1 series Holiday and a weekly show on BBC Radio 2 ‘Early Bird’, an early morning show each Saturday and is a mixture of music, chat, news and views

As part of her anchor role with BBC Scotland Jackie frequently goes on location to cover major stories and events. This has involved a wide variety of presentations from the opening of the Scottish Parliament and the Skye Bridge to the 1998 Oscar ceremony where she interviewed the stars, directors and producers of 'Rob Roy' and 'Braveheart'.

Jackie has produced and presented a number of documentaries for BBC Scotland including the story of a Scot who lives with an African tribe in Kenya, another on the hand over of Hong Kong from Britain to the Chinese in 1997.

She has also written, produced and directed documentary feature programmes for BBC Network such as the highly acclaimed documentary 'Personal Best' on the fight back of an international athlete left brain damaged after a car crash and 'The Lives of Brian' for BBC 2's Public Eye focusing on the story of a 32 year old man deceiving school authorities and students by returning to his old school as a pupil.

Since joining BBC Scotland in 1990 Jackie has presented a variety of programming including a light entertainment quiz series 'Superscots'. She has also presented a number of programmes on BBC Radio Scotland and for two years hosted her own three-hour Saturday morning show comprising of music, quizzes, phone-ins and celebrity interviews.

When not broadcasting Jackie is a self-confessed 'obsessed athlete'. She is a qualified aerobics teacher and swim coach, a triathlete competitor and keen half marathon runner, a qualified dinghy sailor and water-skier. She is also in demand as a presenter, writer and producer of corporate videos, and presenter of conferences, fashion shows, award ceremonies and debates.

Hazel Irvine

Hazel Irvine is one of Britain’s foremost and highly regarded television presenters.
Renowned for her experience and versatility, Hazel is a multi-award winning sports broadcaster who also has many high-profile credits in News, Light Entertainment and Events.

In the summer of 2008 Hazel helped to wake up the nation on the BBC’s Olympic Breakfast Programme from Beijing with co-presenter Adrian Chiles. She also commentated on the Olympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies with Huw Edwards.

In fact, Hazel has been an integral part of BBC Sport’s output over the last 18 years. The Beijing Games were her 10th Olympics, both summer and winter.

An authoritative and engaging anchor, she is the regular “face’ of BBC Sport’s coverage of snooker, athletics, much of it’s golf output and major multi-sport events. In 2007 she earned the Royal Television Society’s Sports Presenter of the Year award.

She was the youngest presenter ever to anchor Grandstand and the face of Ski Sunday for a decade. Her credits also include the Commonwealth Games, The Ryder Cup, The Masters, Wimbledon, the London Marathon and the Boat Race. In football she has reported from 4 football World Cups and European championships.

Amongst Hazel’s many projects for BBC News are the Six o’Clock and Ten o’Clock news, the Olympic Torch Relay, New Year LIVE and the 2012 Olympic bid announcement in Singapore.

Her frequent ventures outside sport and news have included on-location presentations of the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings in 2004, VE Day celebrations and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo for BBC Events. She hosted BBC Scotland’s Children in Need appeal for 10 years and anchored its Millennium Night coverage.

In addition she has presented three television magazine programme series; BBC 2’s The Air Show, health and wellbeing show Feeling Good and Outside Now, a leisure and activities strand for BBC Scotland. She has enjoyed making guest appearances on programmes such as They Think It’s All Over and Call My Bluff. Hazel has also presented many radio programmes for Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio Scotland.

An honours degree graduate of the University of St Andrews, she represented the Uni in golf, athletics and netball. Hazel and her husband are based in West London. She remains an enthusiastic, if average, piano and golf player. She is also an enthusiastic supporter of an average football team, Dumbarton FC and is proud to be the Honorary President of the club’s Supporters Association.

Cathy Macdonald

Cathy MacDonald has presented a wide variety of television and radio programming in Scotland. Currently hosting a live radio show each week-day, on BBC Radio nan Gaidheal, from 2pm – 4pm, featuring an eclectic mix of radio 2 style music, she also presents Medical Matters for BBC Radio Scotland, a weekly series dealing with health issues.

She also hosts the annual live coverage of the National MOD, conducting interviews and linking into live action. Another of her presentation roles was co-presenting the travel show “Passport” for SMG, as well as three runs of the Scottish Television series ‘VIP’ in which she interviewed celebrities about their religious beliefs.

Over the last eight years, she has written a weekly column for The Press and Journal in Aberdeen. Aside from presenting programmes, she also runs her own production company, Burach Productions Ltd, which has produced ten hours of children’s animation for BBC Scotland for the last 6 years. This year she is about to go into production of the fourth series of Fasgnadh for BBC Scotland’s Gaelic TV department. Burach Productions also produces a weekly Gaelic programme on Friday nights, for Radio nan Gaidheal.

In the early 90’s Cathy presented ‘The Name of the Gael’, a fourteen part historical series, in Gaelic, for Scottish Television charting the story of the Gaels through the centuries. Following this Cathy was one of the main presenters on the BBC Scotland regional news programme ‘Reporting Scotland’ during its summer schedule, when not in the presentation chair she was often seen reporting on major stories. She has also presented and written for the Channel Four documentary series ‘Scottish Eye’.

Cathy has regularly stood in as presenter on other programmes on BBC Radio Scotland as well as request shows and is often seen making guest appearances on both BBC Scotland and Scottish Television. She has also written articles for Scottish Field magazine and the Evening Times.

With a relaxed appearance and professional attitude Cathy is a natural choice to host corporate events, award ceremonies and conferences. Over the past year Cathy has been compere for The Royal Bank of Scotland Network Support Awards Dinner, chaired the Scottish Qualification Authority Staff Conference, compere at The Highlands & Islands Enterprise ‘Winners At The Web’ Awards 2001/2002, compere for Glasgow’s Evening Times ‘Scotswoman of the Year Awards’ 2000/2001/2002 and she has also chaired the ‘Communities & Drugs/Taking Effective Action Conference on behalf of Scottish Executive.

Dougie Vipond

Dougie Vipond presents and reports BBC Scotland’s sport news output on Sportscene & Reporting Scotland and also works as a reporter on Radio Scotland’s nightly football magazine, 90 Minutes.

During the last ten years, Dougie has worked across many broadcast genres and spent four years reporting for BBC’s Holiday, Summer Holiday and Holiday’s Out programmes, co-presented The Kirsty Wark Show with Guess Who and The Big Country, BBC Scotland’s guide to leisure activities north of the border plus spent two weeks as guest presenter on ITV’s This Morning.

In a past life, Dougie was founder member and drummer with the band Deacon Blue with whom he recorded and toured for eight years. He still plays with the band when commitments allow. His expertise in music has helped when presenting The Score for Channel 4, Och Around The Clock, a history of Jock n Roll and T in the Park for BBC Scotland plus The Blues and Soul Show, a weekly celebration of black music on Radio Scotland.

Further Information
Dougie studied at The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama BA (Music Performance). He is married to Opera Singer Elizabeth McCormack. They have three sons, and live in Culross, Fife.

Booking Dougie Vipond for your event >

Viv Lumsden

Information to follow...

Carol Smillie

Carol is one of the UK’s most sought after presenters for television programmes, award ceremonies, corporate events, advertisements and charity work. Those who know her primarily from Changing Rooms may be surprised by the range of her work on and off the TV. She has won a NATIONAL TV AWARD, an INDIE award and was nominated for a BAFTA. She has worked with Princes, Prime Ministers and movie stars, and is gaining recognition overseas in particular through BBC America.

Carol Smillie began her career in showbusiness as the much publicised hostess on ITV's WHEEL OF FORTUNE, a role however, which denied her a chance to speak.She found her voice, and her feet, shortly after as one of the main reporters on BBC2's THE TRAVEL SHOW.

After two years, she was snapped up as a regular on BBC1's HOLIDAY, often fronting the show.
Carol was the face of the BBC's SUMMER HOLIDAY and HOLIDAY SWAPS and for three years in succession, fronted THE NATIONAL LOTTERY.

However, the show she will always be known for is, of course, BBC television's CHANGING ROOMS, the flagship DIY programme which changed the face of British television as we know it today. The programme earned Carol invitations to Buckingham Palace & Downing Street and the big red book on THIS IS YOUR LIFE.

She has fronted 5 successful series of "Dream Holiday Homes" on FIVE. Carol is a regular guest on game shows and other popular programmes, she recently appeared on a celebrity version of ITV's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire " and BBC's "Strictly Ice Dancing".

ITV chose Carol as the main presenter to launch two new series for them, one was called "The Peoples Court" which helped members of the public sort out problems and the other was "A Brush With Fame" which had members of the public from all over the U.K. competing to find out who was Britain's best amateur portrait painter.

Carol has presented Hospital Live for Living TV and she also made an appearance from Norwich Cathedral on ITV on Christmas Eve and on Christmas day appeared on BBC 1 on "Before They Were Famous".

Carol has now followed in the footsteps of such stars as Kate Winslett,Whoopi Goldberg and Sophie Dahl when she appeared in two tours of the World-Wide ,Must See,Phenomenon,

"THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES "

Both tours were a complete sell out and attracted rave reviews from the critics.

Carol was one of the main celebrities on the recent BBC1 series, Strictly Come Dancing, and she has also fronted a special report about DIY on ITV's Tonight With Trevor McDonald programme.Carol's latest TV Project is as the host of "The Postcode Challenge" a 40 week quiz series for ITV Scotland.
Carol is very much in demand in the corporate market as a host for company conferences and award ceremonies, and was chosen to host the Duke of Edinburgh's 80th birthday celebrations at the Royal Albert Hall.

You can learn more about Carol by logging on to her personal website http://www.carolsmillie.tv/