Danny Baker (Christened Danny and born June 22, 1957, Deptford, South London) is an English comedy writer, radio presenter and occasional television presenter.

Born in the working class district of Deptford in SE London. Left school in 1972 at the age of 15, Baker initially worked in One Stop Records, a record shop in South Molton Street in London's West End. In 1976, with fellow Deptfordian Mark Perry, Baker founded the proto-punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue, and this led to an offer from the New Musical Express, home to the likes of Julie Burchill, Tony Parsons, Charles Shaar Murray and Nick Kent. Baker initially began working as the receptionist, but was soon contributing regular articles and reviews before progressing to interviews. He often refers to these times during his radio shows, regularly citing examples of the ridiculous rock star behaviour exhibited by his interviewees.

Baker began his radio career on BBC GLR in 1989, presenting Weekend Breakfast from 6-9am on Saturdays and Sundays. The show was produced by Chris Evans, who became a good friend to Baker.

With GLR eventually opting for a more orthodox breakfast show at weekends, Baker moved to the 10am to 1pm slot on Sundays.

In 1990, Baker joined the newly launched BBC Radio 5, presenting Sportscall, a phone-in sports quiz broadcast every Saturday lunchtime.

From October 1991 to October 1992 he presented 606 and from February 1992 until October 1993, he presented Morning Edition from 6.30-9am every weekday morning. This was Baker's heyday - his Morning Edition still stands out in the memory of his fans as one of the funniest and most innovative programmes in the history of British radio. The show blended Baker's love of unusual trivia with 'grown-up' music. This was where Baker first teamed up with Danny Kelly and Allis Moss. Mark Kermode added weekly film reviews, and would later appear with his band 'The Railtown Bottlers' every week on the first series of Baker's TV show.

His anchoring of 606 polarised opinion. To fans of a non-conservative nature he was hailed as a genius, while traditionalists abhorred his loud-mouthed, iconoclastic approach. His influence at the station remains. His fearless attacks on football authority, particularly the 'blazers' at the Football Association, paved the way for BBC 5 Live's present day preparedness to court unpopularity within the game through its kissing up to players, managers and referees.

Baker then joined BBC Radio 1 in October 1993, taking over the weekend mid-morning show from 10am-1pm from Dave Lee Travis who had resigned on air following the sackings instigated by Matthew Bannister and Trevor Dann during the early 1990s. However, due to poor ratings, from November 1994 he was heard on Saturdays only from 10am-12midday. Simon Mayo took over Sunday Mornings.

Baker's original style led to a fall in listeners at Radio 1 but despite his tendering his resignation on at least two occasions, management added extensions to his contract. From October 1995, his Saturday show went out from 12.30-2.30pm. He left the station in September 1996. His co-hosts included BBC continuity announcer Allis Moss, Dr. Laurie Sore, Andy Darling and Danny Kelly.

While continuing with his Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 1, in 1996 Baker joined BBC Radio Five Live to present a Sunday lunchtime show with Danny Kelly, Baker & Kelly Upfront.

On leaving BBC Radio 1, Baker returned to BBC GLR to present a three-hour Sunday show from 10am-1pm. 'Baker and Kelly Upfront' also returned, now at Saturday lunchtime, while Baker also took on a new show, 'The Baker Line', a Wednesday evening version of the 606 phone in show.

While 'Baker and Kelly Upfront' was light-hearted, 'The Baker Line' was darker and emotionally charged. Baker was at his most outspoken, and in early 1997, he was sacked from Five Live when station bosses alleged that he had incited threatening behaviour during an angry outburst about a referee.

Baker joined Talk Radio to present a similar football phone-in on Saturday from 5.30-7.30pm. A pre-match show was added from 11.30am to 1pm. After moving to the Saturday breakfast slot (8am to 12 noon), he engineered his own dismissal after a matter of weeks by refusing to centre the show on football, preferring to intersperse chat with his own music selections.

After leaving Talk Radio, he joined Virgin Radio in early 1999, taking over from Jonathan Ross on Sundays from 10am-1pm.

Not long after, Baker was approached by the BBC and was asked whether he wanted to present a Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 2. Baker turned down the offer by saying the time wasn't right. Baker also deputised on Virgin's Saturday lunchtime football show from 12-2pm for a handful of shows, alongside Danny Kelly.

He left the station in 2000

In September 2001, Baker joined BBC London 94.9 presenting a Saturday morning show from 8-11am. Just 6 months later, in March 2002, he took over the breakfast show from 6-9am and used the song The Candy Man as the recurring theme tune. Although not drawing a large listenership, the show was much loved by those who did tune in, and he won "Sony Radio DJ of the year" for the show. However, the day after winning, he announced he was leaving at the end of the month. His last show was on Friday 27 May 2005.

On Monday 17 October 2005, after a sabbatical at home, Baker rejoined BBC London 94.9 where he took over the weekday show 3-5pm from Jono Coleman, who moved to co-present the breakfast show with former actress Joanne Good.

His radio shows tend to feature off-the-wall phone-ins and discussions with his on-air team, often regarding music and entertainment nostalgia of the 1960s and 1970s. His interviews focus on off-beat trivia rather than the guests' latest or most famous work. He takes pleasure in interspersing his shows with relatively obscure rock tracks from bands such as Yes, Todd Rundgren, Steely Dan, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart.

He is joined on his current afternoon show by Amy Lamé, Baylen Leonard and David Kuo, who also appear on his latest project, a podcast called the All Day Breakfast Show.

On March 15 2007 Baker launched the All Day Breakfast Show, a podcast to reach listeners beyond BBC London's FM radio reach. Regulars Amy Lamé, Baylen Leonard and David Kuo contribute and the first show featured an appearance by comedian and actor Peter Kay.

The All Day Breakfast Show is recorded daily, Monday to Friday at 11am GMT, "in the past for listeners in the future" originally in Baker's own studio based from the kitchen of an Italian restaurant and known as La Cucina and later from the offices of Wippit media. Each show is available as a download and lasts about 55 minutes.

After nearly six months of free podcasts, the All Day Breakfast Show began charging £2 per week. After one week, on September 11 2007 Baker put the ADBS on indefinite hold until "a few things get sorted out". Users had reported short shows and difficulty downloading episodes. However, after several weeks of silence and no small amount of internet "twitch" and News of the World nonsense about the break up of Danny's 27 year marriage, the All Day Breakfast Show officially announced its return to the air on the 19th October 2007. No announcement on the main website was given, but in a 5 minute mini-show downloadable initially only to paid subscribers who happened to check the download section of the website, Danny Baker and Baylen Leonard announced the return of the Show. They confirmed that from "next week" they would be broadcasting three times a week. The also suggested (possibly only partially in jest) that due to BBC cuts announced the previous day, that they may be planning to end their official BBC London show and move to being an "Internet Only" show. The mini-show also introduced a new recording of the Candyman themesong that Danny explained had been recorded by Lou and Dennis Brimble who apparently perform at "The Jolly Gardeners" public house in Rotherhithe New Road which is Danny's local.

On September 8 2007 Baker and Kelly resumed their partnership, releasing the first podcast of their football programme for the 2007-2008 season.

On television, early appearances included a 1981 teaming with Janet Street Porter on LWT's 20th Century Box, an example of Porter's youth TV production style that kick-started her career. The show consisted of a series of 30-minute documentaries on elements of youth culture, the most memorable the burgeoning New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) scene which included an early TV appearance of Iron Maiden performing at The Marquee Club, and hilarious interviews with "air guitarists".

Baker's first mainstream break was as roving reporter-presenter on the Michael Aspel's LWT regional magazine The Six O'Clock Show alongside former Mastermind winner and former London black cab driver Fred Housego. Paul Ross (brother of Jonathan Ross whom Baker had as his best man) was his researcher. Baker's most memorable moment during his stint on The Six O'Clock Show (continually resurrected for clip shows) is his altercation with a railway platform guard in which Baker can be heard remonstrating "Don't you know who I am?".

Baker drifted into television writing after being asked to prepare a piece for one of the first clip shows: TV Hell (an A-Z of the worst TV programmes ever). Just prior to this he had performed in pantomime as Idle Jack in Dick Whittington at Barking alongside Michael Robbins ("Olive"'s husband "Arthur" from vintage sitcom On The Buses). None of the cast was paid.

Since then he has presented television shows such as Win, Lose, or Draw, Pets Win Prizes and TV Heroes, the last a series of 10-minute homages to some of Baker's entertainment idols including Fanny Craddock, Peter Glaze (from Crackerjack) and the Top of the Pops audience (in which Baker once appeared leaping around to a performance of "Ooh What A Life" by the Gibson Brothers in 1979 - it was captioned as "Danny Baker's first TV appearance". Baker later described himself as 'looking like he was trying to put out a small fire'.

He landed his own BBC Saturday night chat show (Danny Baker After All) which borrowed from the Late Night with David Letterman US talk show, but his style and guests (Rick Wakeman of prog rock band Yes was a regular) did not attract the mainstream audience the slot demanded.

His later appearance fronting a series of television adverts for Daz washing powder and Mars chocolate led to a feeling of over-exposure and even sell-out from some quarters. Adult satire comic Viz featured a savage cartoon featuring Baker as the main character. Baker parodied his Daz ads by appearing as himself on the sitcom Me, You and Him.

In 1997 Baker presented the nostalgic BBC programme Match of the Eighties, a six-part series of football between 1980-81 and 1985-86.

During the late 1990s he made guest appearances on comedy shows including Have I Got News For You, Shooting Stars and Room 101. During this period he appeared in the press as a result of nights out with friends Chris Evans and England footballer Paul Gascoigne. Gascoigne was under media scrutiny for drinking and socialising while preparing for tournaments. This included an incident when Gascoigne was photographed by paparazzi in the early hours wolfing down a doner kebab a few days before a game. After Gascoigne was left out of the 1998 World Cup squad, Baker went on Have I Got News For You to defend his friend and criticise the omission.

Baker was also a writer on Evans' show TFI Friday, as well as writing for presenters such as Angus Deayton and Jonathan Ross, and writing a weekly column for The Times. He was briefly a columnist for early issues of movie magazine Empire.

He also appeared on The Terry and Gaby Show from 2003 to 2004 (which will be remembered for the moment when he burnt his hand trying to perform a trick with a microwave and a piece of soap) and has appeared on BBC Four quiz show QI.

Baker worked again with Charles Shaar Murray on the Ramones documentary End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones, providing an audio commentary.

In 2005 Baker appeared in the video to "Is This the Way to Amarillo?" a number 1 single for Peter Kay and Tony Christie, which also featured other British personalities such as Keith Harris, Geoffrey Hayes, Shakin' Stevens and Jimmy Savile.

Baker's most recent TV project was The Sitcom Showdown which began on UK TV Gold in late April 2006. Baker appeared on Comic Relief Does The Apprentice in 2007 for Comic Relief. He also starred in The Rocky Horror Show, as the narrator, at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley and the New Wimbledon Theatre.

*He was witness at Chris Evans' marriage to Billie Piper * On meeting one of his heroes Mel Brooks he was delighted to find Brooks had used the name "Danny Baker" as character names in one his early works as he felt it "was the most Gentile name I could think of" *His passions range as widely as punk music, the U.S., progressive rock, Millwall F.C., Steely Dan, The Marx Brothers and P. G. Wodehouse. *He has a large collection of vinyl records and a collection of redundant laserdiscs that his family refer to as 'Baker's folly'. *The McLusky song 'Dethink To Survive' finishes with a repeated screamed refrain of 'Danny Baker!'

* The All Day Breakfast Show official web site. *Site with a wealth of Baker-related information and archives of his work *Baker's official BBC London site *