by Watch: DJ Pat Sharp says random strangers still thank her now for happy childhood memories
He’s an in-demand British live DJ, playing “Norway on Friday and then Billericay on Saturday”, but veteran TV and radio presenter Pat Sharp, 61, is outspoken about the main key to his success.
“I work hard on my live sets,” he told Kate Thornton on the White Wine Question Time podcast, “but to be honest with you, it’s all about kids’ TV.”
Sharp was referring to ITV’s Fun House, an animated children’s television show that he co-hosted in the 1990s with twins Melanie and Martina Grant. In it, teams played energetic and messy games like Lava Swamp, Balloon Tunnel, and go-kart Grand Prix. The hugely popular children’s show ended in 1999, after a decade.
Yet nearly 25 years later, his impact on a generation lives on.
“If I’m at Butlins, a guy will come up to me, about six foot six and probably, I mean, across, he’s just a big guy,” Sharp said. “and he will go [Sharp breaks into an intimidating slow growl]’You… made… my… childhood.’”
Sharp quipped, “To which I reply, ‘Well, that’s probably for the best!'”
“And it’s not coming from the radio or anything. It’s just for doing Fun House.”
Listen to the full episode to hear Pat Sharp relive her favorite celebrity encounters with Kate Thornton and the joys of working with Stock Aitken and Waterman.
Sharp’s passion for hosting began with an early fascination with radio jingles.
It was “geeky behavior,” he told Thornton, which impacted his teenage social life.
“I remember hanging out with my friends, you know, when we were 17, 18 years old,” he said. “And a couple of the girls were like, ‘Would you like to come back to our house for tea?’”
Sharp continued: “After 20 minutes I was like, ‘Sorry I have to go because Top 40 is on and I have to record the jingles…my partner looks at me and goes, ‘What?!'”
However, Sharp’s passion for radio paid off.
At just 20 years old, he covered Steve Wright on BBC Radio One and became the station’s youngest DJ, working alongside Tony Blackburn and Lenny Henry.
Four decades later, he has been a presenter and guest on numerous radio and television stations and shows, including London’s Capital One and Top of the Pops.
While Sharp sports short hair today, it was her initial hairstyle that added to her fame.
The short top, long back style was inspired, Sharp revealed, by a trip to Norway, where he met Monica, his wife of 36 years. It was there that he saw young men sporting “fantastic” mullets inspired by Norwegian ice hockey players of the 1980s.
His own version, Sharp proudly told Thornton, became “practically the best-known mullet in this country” and “I think it surpassed the likes…of Peter Stringfellow…and Andre Agassi.”
Only Noel Edmonds, his colleague at Radio One, could compete.
It was a marked point when Sharp appeared as a guest on the BBC’s Noel’s House Party, at a time when his mullet, he revealed, was “at his most ridiculous”.
Edmonds’ own hair was, at the time, Sharp quipped, “comfortable” and “beautiful.”
Sharp recalled knocking on the “door”, during the party at Noel’s house, and Edmonds answered.
“And he said, ‘Look at your HAIR!’” Sharp said. “I just replied, ‘Okay, you can talk!’”
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Sharp would later recall such showbiz anecdotes in his fake memoir, Re-run The Fun: My Life As Pat Sharp.
In it, he “twisted” real life encounters with the likes of Cilla Black and Bob Monkhouse to make them “more fun”.
An unlikely claim in the book is that he wrapped Spice Girl Geri Halliwell in a “Union Jack tablecloth” so she “could get on stage real quick and wear it as a dress” at the Brit Awards.
“Because obviously that’s what happened – ish!Sharp laughed, referring to one of Britain’s most famous fashion moments.
Today, even as he DJs to crowds in Dubai and Ibiza, and hosts a popular Greatest Hits radio show, Sharp’s children’s television work remains his legacy.
There is a (real) encounter in show business that proves it.
Read more: Pat Sharp: David Beckham was a fan of Fun House
Sharp told Thornton that he met Victoria Beckham at lunch. The star wanted, she said, to thank her for being “kind to” her memories on her radio show.
That’s when Sharp saw David Beckham trying to join the conversation.
“Oh, this is my husband, David,” Sharp recalled Victoria saying.
“And I said, ‘I know, dude, hi,’” Sharp said.
“And he goes, ‘Fun House!’”
Watch: Pat Sharp shares her love of radio on White Wine Question Time
