Chris Stark

Christopher Stark (born 12 March 1987) is a British radio personality known for his work as a contributor on the Scott Mills show on BBC Radio 1.

Career

Stark started working at Radio Northwick Park, a hospital radio station, at the age of 16 and gained experience working at stations including Galaxy, Real Radio, Virgin Radio and BBC 6 Music. At 18, Stark started at the University of Southampton where he studied politics and was given his own show on the student radio station Surge.^[1]

He officially joined the Scott Mills show team on 2 April 2012,^[2] but occasionally appeared on the show as 'Scott's friend Chris' for a period of time prior to this. Stark participates in most of the show's current features including Real or No Real, Innuendo Bingo, 24 Years at the Tap End, Loving the Trolls, and "Mike Oxbig vs Moe Lester".

24 Years at the Tap End

Stark is known for the feature 24 Years at the Tap End,^[3] in which he reads excerpts from his "autobography" (a joke pronunciation of autobiography used on the show).^[4] He was originally inspired to write his own autobiography after reading the autobiography of Brendan Sheerin from Coach Trip. The title refers to his on-air realisation, at age 24, that he had been sitting at the wrong end of the bath his whole life. The first episode aired on 11 November 2011. In this episode, Stark revealed that his parents had originally planned to name him "Padraig".^[3] Throughout the series, Stark recounts memorable events from his "years at the tap end" which often include mistakes made and life lessons learned through adventures with his friends. The second series of the show concluded in 2013, with no plans for a third. However, a one-off special aired in January 2014 as part of a comedy night on Radio One. This late night edition, Tap End: Unplugged, aired live In front of a studio audience and featured a live rendition of the theme tune. The late airing allowed Stark to reveal the full story of a holiday to Prague he had discussed in a previous episode, telling parts which were considered "too rude for daytime" and using strong language.^[5]

Mila Kunis interview

In March 2013, Stark was sent with ten minutes' notice to a media junket for the film Oz the Great and Powerful to interview American actress Mila Kunis for the Scott Mills show. The interview caught the attention of the world's media due to its unorthodox nature, as Stark barely mentioned the film and mostly discussed his local pub, football club, Nando's and drinking games with his friends (inviting Kunis to all four). The video was posted to YouTube by BBC Radio 1 and subsequently went viral. Within days, it had been viewed by ten million people^[6] and Stark himself was interviewed by American entertainment and news shows such as Access Hollywood^[7] and CNN's Starting Point with Soledad O'Brien.^[8]

Stark went on to interview Robert Downey Jr^[9] and Jennifer Aniston^[10] in similar fashion.

ICYMI

Since November 2014, Stark has hosted a BBC iPlayer only feature called ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) where he talks through highlights from the last week on Radio 1 and Radio 1 Xtra.^[11]

Television

In November 2013, Channel 4 announced they had commissioned an hour long, one-off documentary special which would feature Stark attempting to interview his ultimate bucket list of celebrities, including Derek Acorah, Rachel Stevens, Emma Thompson, Colin Farrell, Ricky Hatton and Verne Troyer.^[12] This aired on 10 February 2014.

From 2014 until 2016, Stark was a team captain on the E4 show, Virtually Famous. He was replaced by Vicky Pattison in 2017. In 2015, Stark appeared as a guest on the CBBC panel show The Dog Ate My Homework. He will take part in a celebrity edition of Robot Wars on BBC Two.

References

External links

• March 2012 Interview with Chris Stark by Soton Tab
• Chris Stark featured in an April 2012 Newsbeat report on heart screenings
• 2014 interview with Chris Stark by Soton Tab