Zoe Ball’s famous dad Johnny gives major update on her next career step

Broadcaster Johnny Ball will be appearing on screen alongside his famous daughter Zoe Ball, after she quit her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show last year

Sharing firsthand knowledge of the heights both of fame and of the Alps – where they love zooming down ski slopes – Johnny and Zoe Ball are also set to share their family history on TV.

Zoe, 54, is returning to telly after quitting her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show at the end of 2024, following an extended break after her mother Julia’s death last April – Johnny’s first wife.

And now Zoe’s in “such a good place” after leaving behind the gruelling 4am starts her show demanded, her dad says.

“Her mum died last year and she’s had various other problems, but she’s chuffed to have packed in the Radio 2 breakfast show, as she’s realised every day has 24 hours now,” he told Saga magazine.

“Her days used to start at 4am and by the time it got to midday she was knackered. She visited me recently and said: ‘I’m in such a good place’.”

And when she does return to screens later this year, her famous dad will be there to support her.

For Zoe will be tracing her family tree in the popular BBC1 series Who Do You Think You Are?

Her dad, although sworn to secrecy on exactly what viewers will learn from the episode, happily reveals some colourful anecdotes about the family – including Zoe’s gran, Martha.

Recalling her alleged close encounter with the German Luftwaffe in Bolton during World War Two, he laughs: “My mum always insisted she was machine gunned as she walked down the high street and it was true that a German aircraft, after attacking Bristol, would head that way home.

“With me in the pram, Mum tried to get into Woolworths’ doorway for safety, but a chap said, ‘Sorry, Mrs, we’re all full up here!’ So Mum and I were left to find shelter elsewhere.”

Speaking exclusively to The Mirror ahead of the release of the first volume of his two-part autobiography, My Previous Life in Comedy, next week, 86-year-old Johnny is just back from a ski-ing holiday with wife Di in the Italian Alpine resort of Cervinia – 2,000 metres above sea level.

He says: “I still love to ski. I have been skiing for 40 years. We went to Cervinia as it’s so high up, so you are guaranteed snow.

“Mind you, it was £90 travel insurance per day. It’s hysterical as we could have gone to Botswana for the same money. Zoe has just come back from Courchevel too. She enjoyed it so much she has booked for next year already.”

The face of 1970s and 80s children’s TV – when he charmed kids on Play School and Play Away, also exploring his love of maths on shows like Think of A Number and Think Again – Johnny also waxes lyrical about his dad, Danny, an iron founder, who he says passed down his comic talent.

Johnny, who says he crafted his own comic timing as a Butlin’s Red Coat in Pwllheli, North Wales, recalls: “It was my dad who led me to appreciate comedy. I have always said that if he had the chance, he would have been a wonderful comic.

“He honestly couldn’t utter a straight line. He was in the depression and the war and the cards never fell in his favour in his entire life. However, that didn’t stop him saying something funny all the time.”

Speaking at his Buckinghamshire home, Johnny – whose second book will be out next year – says his dad taught him how to raise a laugh by taking him to see stars like George Formby at the Blackpool Opera House.

And after a spell working in accounts for the De Havilland Aircraft Corporation and three years in the RAF, Johnny started landing regular stints on stage with comedy slots supporting Dusty Springfield.

Once, he even supported The Rolling Stones – an experience he’d rather forget.

“It was terrible,” he says. “The fans screamed and screamed and nobody heard me for a fortnight”.

Yet he turned down chances to go on BBC talent show Opportunity Knocks – despite saying it was the making of his great pal, Les Dawson – instead getting the lucky break that turned him from comic to presenter on kids’ TV.

He remembers: “I turned up for the audition in a tailor made suit and Russell & Bromley shoes which were £70 back then.

“When I arrived I thought the audition would be for the show Crackerjack.

“I got the job. They said to me ‘You are going to be wonderful in Play School.’

“It was for under fives at 11am on BBC 2, but nobody had BBC 2 back then. I guess it is always the same in showbiz, you always get the job you don’t want.”

At first, he struggled, then he began using some of his stand-up talent – minus the adult humour – and soon became a star.

He says: “It was my comedy training that helped me write factual info scripts that were never boring, but always had a joke or a fun idea at every turn. Mum and Dad were always singing and that influenced me greatly as well.

“I wrote most of the sketches for Play Away. What you have to do is take the audience away and do them as adult sketches, just cleaner, that’s all it was.”

Think Of A Number, Johnny Ball Reveals All and Knowhow followed, each demystifying maths and science with Johnny’s trademark humour, helping young – and old – deal with the brain boggling subject matter.

In their hey-day, his shows pulled in more than five million viewers.

He says: “We had such ambition on those shows. We never thought we were broadcasting to a children’s audience just the people out there.

“When they (BBC) did some research they found out our audience was 70 per cent adults. So what they did was they started to make shows like Grange Hill and Byker Grove, which taught kids how to be naughty, which they already knew how to be.

“All our shows, Roy Castle’s shows and Tony Hart’s shows, which tried to help children understand the world and science and technology, were thrown out of the window and it was so sad.”

Lamenting what he regards as the demise of children’s TV on modern schedules, he says there is a new fan base for his shows now on YouTube.

“There are quite a lot of our shows on YouTube,” he says. “I hear people find some of my shows there. It was amazing the amount of stuff we used to do in 25 minutes. They were lovely times.”

And Johnny will be making guest appearances on a whole range of shows next week – from Loose Women to The One Show and Saturday Live – to promote his book.

He can’t wait, saying: “If I go into a television studio now at 86 I am so at home the moment I walk in there. I loved TV. I did 17 years in Play School and all the other shows. I always felt as if I could have done more. I am still trying to sell a few series ideas.”

While Zoe has clearly inherited Johnny’s showbiz genes, he is incredibly proud of all his children – all high achievers.

One son Nick works in the arts and the other, Dan, is a structural engineer.

A doting grandfather-of-six, including Zoe’s son Woody Cook by former husband, DJ Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim, he says: “Yes, Woody is something special. He really is. But, hang on, I have six grandchildren. I look out for the lot of them!”

Source: Mirror