Mark Lawson
journalist, broadcaster and author
MARK LAWSON was born on 11 April 1962 and went to school at St Columba's College in St Albans and then went on to University College, London where he took a degree in English. He has been a freelance contributor to numerous publications since 1984 and a Guardian columnist since 1995. In the mid-90s he presented The Late Show on BBC2 and has presented The Late Review since 1994. He is currently theatre critic of the Tablet and presents BBC Radio 4's daily arts magazine Front Row.
Mark Lawson has twice been voted TV critic of the Year and has won numerous awards for arts journalism. He also has the dubious honour of being one of many celebrities impersonated by the Dead Ringers team.
Mark has written several radio plays for the network, including St Graham and St Evelyn (2003) on the friendship between the Catholic novelists Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh and The Third Soldier Holds His Thighs (2005) on Mary Whitehouse's campaign against the Howard Brenton play The Romans in Britain and The Man Who Had 10,000 Women (2002). Mark Lawson has written episodes of the television version of the BBC sitcom Absolute Power appearing as himself and a television play, The Vision Thing. He has published five works of fiction: Bloody Margaret: Three Political Fantasies (1991), The Battle for Room Service: Journeys to All the Safe Places (1993), Idlewild (1995), Going Out Live (2001) and Enough is Enough (2005).
Since 2006, Mark has hosted a number of in-depth, one-to-one interviews for BBC Four, entitled, Mark Lawson Talks to... A series in which he hosts a 60-minute in-depth conversation with a notable figure from the arts and entertainment world.
