James Whale, who has died of cancer aged 74, was the British radio presenter most reminiscent of the American “shock jocks” noted for expressing their opinions on air in a provocative way. Arguing with listeners on his phone-in shows became part of Whale’s trademark style – and his more extreme remarks brought him one sacking and another suspension.
In 1974, during his first year with the commercial station Metro Radio in Newcastle, a national paper was moved to ask whether he was the rudest man on radio.
Later, he spoke about “the stupidity of leftwing politics”, criticised anti-racist groups, referred to asylum seekers as “criminals” who are “breaking into our country” and maintained that climate change was a natural phenomenon. Whale was sacked by TalkSport in 2008 for breaching broadcasting’s impartiality rules when he urged Londoners to elect Boris Johnson as mayor. Ten years later, Ofcom censured him and TalkRadio for his “insensitivity” and comments “likely to cause a high level of offence” during an interview with a journalist talking about her sexual assault.
Nichi Hodgson wrote in the Guardian: “I was interrogated, ridiculed and had my journalistic integrity questioned.” At one stage, Whale appeared to laugh at her description of being “orally raped” and, Hodgson added, he used “every sneeringly dismissive and misogynistic trick in the book”.
Despite the regulator’s criticism and TalkRadio suspending him, the presenter was reinstated after broadcasting an apology.
Three decades earlier, he had applied his brand of broadcasting to TV in The James Whale Radio Show (1988-92) on ITV. For the first few series, the cameras simply filmed his late-night phone-in programme on the Leeds station Radio Aire. In 2022, the year when his TalkRadio show started being simulcast on the newly launched TalkTV, Whale announced at an awards ceremony that he had terminal cancer – and acknowledged: “I know a lot of you won’t like me, but this time next year I won’t be here.” He had been diagnosed with cancer of the brain, spine, kidney and lungs.
Twenty-two years earlier, in 2000, after contracting kidney cancer, he had been given three months to live. At that time, he had a kidney removed, survived and set up a charity, the James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer (now Kidney Cancer UK). In 2024 he was made MBE for services to broadcasting and charity.
He was born Michael Whale, in Ewell, Surrey, the son of Anne (nee Price), a ballet dancer, and David Whale, who worked in his family’s business, S&R Whale, which made dresses, aprons and overalls.
While at Lintons Lane secondary modern, then Longmead school, both in Epsom, he attended an archery club and, in 1965, became Surrey’s under-16 junior champion.
He left school with one CSE, in woodwork, and later said his “stupidity” was caused by his dyslexia. He worked as a labourer at a Ewell builder’s yard before becoming a trainee buyer at Harrods in central London.
Serving actors such as Frank Windsor and working alongside “resting” thespians gave Whale the ambition of becoming famous. A chance presented itself when, in 1968, his parents moved to London and ran a pub owned by Watneys. The brewery was looking for DJs to run discos in its new chain of music bars named The Bird’s Nest, so he took a training course and worked in its Muswell Hill and Waterloo bars, then briefly at a disco-pub in Sweden.
Shortly after marrying Melinda Maxted in 1971, Whale took drama lessons and, because Equity already had a member called Michael Whale, he took their baby son James’s name when he worked as an assistant stage manager at the Adeline Genee theatre, East Grinstead, and spent a month acting at the Oxford Playhouse. He was also an extra in TV shows such as Z Cars and Doctor Who.
By then, his radio career was already under way. In 1970, hearing piped music in Topshop’s Oxford Street branch, he suggested to Ralph Halpern, its manager – and later its chief executive – that it launch an in-store station, Radio Topshop, with him as the DJ. The idea was taken up and, at the same time, he worked in a disco.
Whale moved to a “traditional” station, Metro, when it began broadcasting in 1974. It was among Britain’s first commercial radio companies and Whale hosted one of the earliest late-night phone-in shows, NightOwls.
He switched to BBC Radio Derby to present its morning show in 1981, but hated interviewing Women’s Institute members and others on similarly “worthy” subjects, and was glad to be offered a late-night phone-in by Radio Aire in 1982. Although he had a brief stint hosting the breakfast show (1986-87), he returned to night-time, staying until 1990.
The ITV company Yorkshire Television gave him his first foray into television, as a presenter on the Open Exchange series in Channel 4’s Open College adult education strand in 1987-88.
The James Whale Radio Show ran to eight series and was followed on TV by Whale On (1993-94) and The James Whale Show (1995). He also had a short-lived BBC One daytime phone-in, Talk About (1995).
He returned to radio in 1994 to present a weekend show on LBC before moving on to TalkRadio, which became TalkSport (1996-2008), then switching back to LBC (2008-13). This was followed by a stint on the breakfast show at BBC Radio Essex (2013-16) and his return to the rebranded TalkRadio in 2016, the year he also appeared on Celebrity Big Brother on television.
Whale’s 2007 autobiography was entitled Almost a Celebrity: A Lifetime of Night-Time.
Melinda died of cancer in 2018. In 2021, he married Nadine Talbot-Brown. She survives him, along with his sons from his first marriage, James and Peter.
• James Whale (Michael Whale), broadcaster, born 13 May 1951; died 4 August 2025
