Diary of a motorcycling, fly-fishing media man: Matthew Wright

At weekends, Matthew Wright just select a machine from the stable of monstrous motorcycles at his disposal. Will it be that least of a Royal Enfield? Or the Suzuki trail bike? No, surely it has to be the Triumph Bonneville 750cc. Wright is a biker of some standing, a veteran of eight long two-wheeled journeys across the Indian subcontinent and the Far East, three of which took him into the Himalayas, with others to Bhutan and Vietnam. He was, he says, “doing it years before Ewan McGregor got the idea.”

Which is all very macho for someone who also happens to love ballet and drama, folk music and fly-fishing. At 43, Wright has made himselfaname in print, on radio and on television. His show, The Wright Stuff, is unrivalled in its longevity. “It’s just finished its eighth year. I’ve had people say that it’s the longest-running single presented programme, in terms of hours, on TV,” he says proudly, sitting in a café in Whiteleys, the Victorian shopping mall in London, where the programme is made. He is on site at 5.3am each morning that the show is on air, making coffee and trawling through the newspapers to determine the key talking points of theday – the stories that will really get the callers phoning in. The quality of the responses, he claims, shows how lily-livered other broadcasters have been inthedays before interactivity became fashionable.

“The show’s unique selling point is that it’s a public access TV show. TV execs I’d met from other channels didn’t have the bottle to give the public the chance to give theirviews unhindered with no delay,” says the presenter, preparing to deliver aside swipe at day time television rivals. “It has demonstrated that the great British public is far from being a bunch of dimwits who have to be told how to decorate Christmas trees, as is the case on many daytime shows. They are actually articulate andpassionate about a wide range of issues from high politics to dumb, low pop culture.”

Wright might be one of the few well-known names in the channel 5 schedule but he is not uniquely associated with that broadcaster. He has become increasingly visible as a host of the BBC 1 magazine programme The One Show, filling in for regular presenters Adrian Chiles and Christina Bleakley. He made his name within the British media as an editor of the Bizarre column on The Sun, later moving to the Daily Mirror. The press still shapes the agenda for The Wright Stuff and the host believes his news background gives him an extra edge. “It’s absolutely crucial. One of the things I pride myself on is that because we can turn things round very quickly we don’t have a huge budget to spend on special effects and sending reporters to do ludicrous and unnecessary live broadcasts. We can get discussions on air 24 hours before the BBC with all their resources,” he adds, taking a pop at his other employer.

It’s not Question Time. The host will debate current affairs issues with regular guests such as the former Evening Standard fashion writer Lowri Turner and the actor and I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here winner Christopher Biggins. Nonetheless, The Wright Stuff is a cutabove your average daytime fodder, says its presenter. “We are disproportionately ABC1. We also have a surprisingly high male audience even though we actively court women. When I address the audience we nearly always refer to ‘You ladies, you girls, you women’, and never talk directly to fellas. Yet the audience is almost 50-50.” Government politicians appear nervous of coming on the show, since Tony Blair took part three years ago and was cornered by audience member Maria Hutchins, who approached the then Prime Minister and questioned his education policy, saying “Tony, that’s rubbish.” Wright has had better luck with theTories, notably Ed Vaizey. “I think he’s benefited enormously because he doesn’t appear to be totally on message, he does things which the blue-rinse brigade might find shocking, such as taking herbal Viagra live on the show.”

Until recently, Wright was also holding down a slot on Britain’s biggest radio network, Radio 2. His Friday night arts and culture show The Weekender lasted for two and a half years, but he says he could no longer cope with his multi media workload. “

My Fridays were nudging 21 hours in duration. I was also doing prerecorded interviews during the week and I just can’t keep up that kind of schedule and do all the other work as well. It had to go and I’m absolutely gutted about it, as is [Radio 2 controller] Lesley Douglas, I believe,” he says, attempting to jam his foot in the door of Broadcasting House. “I’m hoping that it’s not the end ofmy relationship with Radio 2, just a bit of scaling down at the moment.”

He says that The Wright Stuff was partly inspired by the radiobased sitcom Frasier. As such, radio came fairly easy to him. “The Wright Stuff is, to all intents and purposes, a phone-in show on television. There’s a natural link between that and radio work. I’m an arts graduate, I did a drama degree and my interests are ballet, drama and rock n’roll. The Weekender gave me an opportunity to show a bit of my knowledge and it was a show I’m extremely proud of.”

Wrights love of rock’n’roll, extends to an almost obsessive interest in the space rock group Hawkwind, knowing the band’s lyrics so intimately that he has appeared on stage as a guest vocalist. He doesn’t really rate himself as much of a hell-raiser, though. When he gets on the iron steed he takes it steady. “The motorbikes are all quite slow. I’m a chugger not a racer. My best friend was killed when I was 21 and that killed off the race element for me,” he says.

He got into fly-fishing when he left the Mirror in 2000. “The whip-round [editor] Richard Wallace organised for me was vouchers for a fly-fishing shop. So I bought all the kit and set about learning it from a book. I jokingly say to people that it saved my life because when my marriage hit the rocks I had something else to focus on. It has changed my life. I just love the nature, the beauty,” he says. Though Wright is grateful for having worked with Piers Morgan and Kelvin MacKenzie (“two of the best editors in living memory”) he sayshe was always more of a performer than a hack. “I have never been part of that journalism clique because I was a child actor and, in my heart of hearts, I have always wanted to do the entertainment,” he says. Hemight now get up at 4.30am but he doesn’t miss the stress of Fleet Street.“WhenIhad the column on the Mirror I was on call 24-7, working six days a week, I rarely took holiday, I was drinking too muchprobably as well. It was a really big toll and I never had time for anything. One of my greatest regrets is that when my father was dying of cancer, I was called away on Boxing Day to go to the Daily Mirror to edit a page on competitions because no one else was there to do it. That was my father’s last Christmas. A great regret,” he says, pointedly. “Although TV is just as intense, the intensity isn’t as prolonged. It also comes more naturally to me. I don’t want to say the word ‘easy’ but I don’t find it stressful, I find it enjoyable.” That is probably why he feels capable of doing TheWright Stuff and The One Show on the same day. “If you think I’m working hard, think of what Piers is doing now. He has a TV career on both sides of the Atlantic, he writes newspaper and magazine columns, goes to every showbiz party going, and writes best-selling books. But he’s bored all the time, because he’s so used toworking at this manic rate. He never used to get stressed out by the mania,” observes Wright. “Whereas I did, I really did.” Matthew Wright presents ‘The One Show’ on BBC 1 this evening.

He returns to ‘The Wright on Five on 1 September'

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