Barry Leslie Norman, CBE (born August 21, 1933) is a British film critic and television presenter.
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Early Life
Norman, the son of film director Leslie Norman, was educated at a state primary school and at the Highgate School, a boys' Independent school in North London. He did not go to university, but instead began his journalistic career at the Kensington News, later spending a period in South Africa where he developed a hostility to the situation created there by the emergence of apartheid. By the 1960s, Norman was a prominent journalist, and show business editor of the Daily Mail until 1971, when he was made redundant. Subsequently, he wrote a column each Wednesday for The Guardian, also contributing leader columns to the newspaper. He was one of the collaborators with Wally Fawkes on the long running cartoon strip Flook. He has also contributed a column to the Radio Times for many years, and written a number of novels. He supported the Liberal Democrats, since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Film critic
He presented BBC1's Film programme from 1972, becoming the sole presenter the following year, although the programme was not transmitted outside of London and the south-east for the first few years. Norman's tenure was broken in 1982 by a brief unhappy spell presenting Omnibus. After returning to the Film series, Norman became increasingly irritated by the BBC's reluctance to screen the programme at a regular time, and he accepted an offer in 1998 to work for BSkyB, where he remained for three years[1]. Jonathan Ross took his place as the BBC programme's presenter. Norman has written and presented a number of documentary series for the BBC, including Hollywood Greats (1977-79, 1983), British Greats (1980) and Talking Pictures (1987).
Radio
Barry Norman was once a regular radio broadcaster. He was the original presenter of the BBC Radio 4 transport and travel show Going Places. He is a former chairman of The News Quiz on Radio 4 and also presented for the network, The Chip Shop, an early 1980s series dedicated to the emerging home computer industry.
Personal Life
Barry Norman has a family recipe for pickle that has been passed down through generations, and which in 2007 was used as the recipe for his own brand of pickled onions, which went on sale in September 2007. [2] Following this crisp manufacturer Walkers has announced plans to release a special 30th anniversary edition pack of it's Monster Munch range called Pickled Norman.
Satire
He is associated with the phrase "and why not?", which originated not as his catchphrase but as that of his puppet likeness on the satirical show Spitting Image. Norman has since adopted the phrase himself, and it is the title of his autobiography. In a recent ITV documentary on Spitting Image, Norman admitted initially hating the way his puppet looked on the programme (mostly because it had a large inexplicable wart on its forehead), but later somewhat moderated his attitude and felt flattered that the series found him famous enough to include him in its sketches.
