ONE HE PREPARED EARLIER
EDITED BY JANE HARDY
Joel Mawhinney, the 41st Blue Peter presenter, talks to Jane Hardy about the magic that launched his brilliant career and how he won over Henry, the Blue Peter dog.
T
alking from a hotel at Gatwick Airport, Joel Mawhinney (25) reveals he’d already had a trial run at co-presenting the BBC’s most venerable kids’ programme, Blue Peter. Using the programme’s own lingo, you could say this move was one he’d prepared earlier. Mawhinney explains: “I’d done my magic a couple of times on the programme and they said ‘Have you ever thought of doing some presenting?’” Mawhinney didn’t need asking twice, took a screen test, auditioned, then got the thumbs up. “I had this phone call and thought it was a joke.” It wasn’t and Joel Mawhinney took over last month from Adam Beales as the programme’s 41st presenter. So how did it go? Mawhinney says it went well. “It was very surreal but I was itching to perform and I was happy with it.” They did a prerecorded show, then a live Blue Peter at 5pm on the same day. “It was a double record and I’m not sure if I am supposed to tell you this but although 95% of Blue Peter is live, one or two shows are recorded, like the Christmas show.” Of course, it’s the live material one remembers, some of it very unrehearsed. We laugh about the famous episode in the ‘60s when Val, John and Peter entertained an engagingly incontinent baby elephant in the studio. Other than animal magic, Blue Peter has always demonstrated an adventurous streak and encouraged its presenters to lead by example. While John Noakes famously climbed Nelson’s column, Joel Mawhinney was asked to jump off a cliff for his first physical challenge. He recalls the trip to the location in deepest Scotland. “It took several hours to get there and they wanted me to do a cliff jump right into the sea, no line or harness.” It’s called tombstoning because of the straight posture you adopt going down, and the programme makers gave their newest
presenter a get-out clause. “They said, ‘Are you sure?’ Bless, but I wasn’t going to say no to my first time on camera after a four-hour drive even if it was out of my comfort zone.” He did the jump, and the result is classic Blue Peter. The guy from Bangor is a natural and his calling card has been a highly successful career in magic. Mawhinney now has some 20 million social media followers and has to adopt a disguise if he wants some personal space. “Recognition via Blue Peter isn’t an issue as all these people already know me from videos. I have to put on a hat when I go to the gym.” Mawhinney started in magic when he was young, encouraged by his grandfather. He has said he developed tricks at primary school partly as a way of making friends and standing out in class. “I was pretty extrovert so it came naturally.” Nowadays, Mawhinney practises contemporary magic skills, revealing that he does a lot of mentalism like David Meade and Derren Brown. “I used to do hypnosis, not getting people to do silly things, but revealing secrets about them. It wasn’t psychotherapy and it’s not part of my routine so much now.” Mawhinney is very pleased the Blue Peter people have allowed him to introduce his tricks into the show. The programme has been going for 64 years and has inevitably evolved, although the key elements of entertainment and a certain amount of sticky backed plastic educational content endure. Yet today there is the challenge of competing with Tik Tok and kids’ IT-dominated world. On the question of TV technique, Mawhinney has clear views. “It isn’t acting. Although it’s rather a cliché, I feel you have to be yourself, albeit enhanced. If you don’t, the façade will eventually drop.”
67
PAGE66-68.indd 3
29/11/2022 10:25
