Johnny Ball

Acting

Johnny Ball

Born

1938-05-23 (88)

Place of birth

Bristol, England, UK

Known for

Acting

Credits

26 titles

Johnny Ball is an English television personality, a populariser of mathematics and the father of BBC Radio 2 DJ Zoe Ball.

Known for

Film credits

2020s · 2 titles

2010s · 3 titles

My Last Five Girlfriends poster
5.3

Depressed and suicidal, thirtysomething bachelor Duncan – determined to find the secret to a healthy, strong relationship, – flashes back to his last five relationships (in the last four years) and considers what caused each one to fail. Based on the novel 'Essays in Love' by Alain de Botton.

My Last Five Girlfriends

2010

Mad and Bad: 60 Years of Science on TV poster
4.0

From Raymond Baxter live on Tomorrow's World testing a new-fangled bulletproof vest on a nervous inventor to Doctor Who's contemporary spin on the War on Terror, British television and the Great British public have been fascinated with the brave new world offered up by science on TV. Narrated by Robert Webb, this documentary takes a fantastic, incisive and funny voyage through the rich heritage of science TV in the UK, from real science programmes (including The Sky At Night, Horizon, Tomorrow's World, The Ascent of Man) to science-fiction (such as The Quatermass Experiment, Doctor Who, Doomwatch, Blake's 7, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), to find out what it tells us about Britain over the last 60 years.

Mad and Bad: 60 Years of Science on TV

2010

No artwork available
NR

Is there any way to slow or even prevent the ravages of time? Veteran presenter Johnny Ball looks back over the 45 years that Horizon, and he, have been on air to find out what science has learned about how and why we grow old. Charting developments from macabre early claims of rejuvenation to the latest cutting-edge breakthroughs, Johnny discovers the sense of a personal mission that drives many scientists and asks whether we are really any closer to achieving the dream of immortality.

Immortal? A Horizon Guide to Ageing

2012

Series credits

The One Show poster
4.3

A topical magazine-style daily television programme broadcast live on BBC One.

The One Show

2006

GMTV poster
5.8

GMTV is the name of the national Channel 3 breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 to 3 September 2010. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of ITV plc in November 2009. Shortly after, ITV plc announced the programme would end. The final edition of GMTV was broadcast on 3 September 2010.

GMTV

1993

Pointless Celebrities poster
6.3

Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman present a celebrity version of the general knowledge quiz in which contestants try to come up with the answers that nobody else could think of.

Pointless Celebrities

2011

House of Games poster
6.1

Each week a group of four famous faces go toe to toe in testing their general knowledge skills in a variety of entertaining games.

House of Games

2017

Celebrity Antiques Road Trip poster
6.0

Antiques experts accompany celebrities on a road trip around the UK searching for treasures and competing to make the most money at auction

Celebrity Antiques Road Trip

2011

Celebrity Mastermind poster
6.0

Celebrity Mastermind is a British television quiz show broadcast by BBC television. The show is a spin-off of the long-running quiz show Mastermind, with the exception that all the contestants are celebrities. As with the main show, John Humphrys is the host and question-master. Magnus Magnusson was quizmaster on the 2003/04 episodes featuring Jonathan Meades as winner.

Celebrity Mastermind

2003

No artwork available
7.0

The Terry and Gaby Show was a daytime television show broadcast on Five on weekday mornings between June 2003 and April 2004, produced by Chris Evans' company UMTV. It was hosted by Terry Wogan and Gaby Roslin. The opening titles featured Gaby dressed up like a movie star driven to the studio in a limo and walking on red carpet to the door. Meanwhile Terry, carrying a briefcase, rode a rickety old bicycle across London and parked it outside the back door before quietly entering the building through said back door. The show was not well known for the guests who appeared on it, but rather for its many bloopers or double entendres

The Terry and Gaby Show

2003

Celebrity Gogglebox poster
6.6

A rolling cast of famous faces, some of Britain's best loved personalities, turn their hand to being the country's most opinionated viewers, sharing their opinions on what they have been watching during the week.

Celebrity Gogglebox

2019

The Chase: Celebrity Special poster
6.3

Celebrity series of The Chase. Contestants must pit their wits against the Chaser, a ruthless quiz genius determined to stop them winning the cash prize.

The Chase: Celebrity Special

2011

Cluedo poster
6.7

Cluedo was a UK television game show based on the board game of the same name. Each week, a reenactment of the murder at the stately home Arlington Grange of a visiting guest was played and, through a combination of interrogating the suspects and deduction, celebrity guests had to discover who committed the murder, which of six weapons and in which room it was committed, whilst viewers were invited to play along at home.

Cluedo

1990

Comic Relief poster
6.0

Comic Relief is a British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Sir Lenny Henry in response to the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. The concept of Comic Relief was to get British comedians to make the public laugh, while raising money to help people around the world and in the United Kingdom. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, an annual (previously biennial) telethon held in March. The first live fundraising evening, held on 4 April 1986, featured comedians and pop stars, including Rowan Atkinson, Billy Connolly, Stephen Fry, Kate Bush and co-founder Lenny Henry.

Comic Relief

1988

No artwork available
5.0

The Great Egg Race was a BBC television series that ran from 1979 to 1986 and featured Brian Cant, Professor Heinz Wolff and Lesley Judd, who joined the series in 1984. It was later revived on BBC Choice and was presented by Johnny Ball. In a similar vein to the later Channel 4 series Scrapheap Challenge, the show featured teams creating Heath Robinson-esque mechanical creations in an attempt to solve a problem set at the start of the show.

The Great Egg Race

1979

No artwork available
NR

Two teams of celebrities search for antique bargains and put them up for auction, with the help of two antiques experts.

Bargain Hunt Famous Finds

2008

The 1970s: Those Were the Days poster
8.0

An affectionate look at life in 1970s Britain - the news, fads, fashions, music and more.

The 1970s: Those Were the Days

2024

No artwork available
NR

Ageing celebrities and public figures take centre-stage in a variety of fun for the camera.

The Baby Boomers' Guide to Growing Old

2017

Think of a Number poster
7.7

A light-hearted exploration of maths and science, presented by Johnny Ball.

Think of a Number

1978

Play School poster
5.5

Play School is a British children's television series produced by the BBC which ran from 21 April 1964 until 11 March 1988. Devised by Joy Whitby, it accidentally became the first ever programme to be shown on the fledgling BBC2 after a power cut halted the opening night's programming. Play School originally appeared on weekdays at 11am on BBC2 and later acquired a mid-afternoon BBC1 repeat. The morning showing was transferred to BBC1 in September 1983 when BBC Schools programming transferred to BBC2. It remained in that slot even after daytime television was launched in October 1986 and continued to be broadcast at that time until it was superseded in October 1988 by Playbus, which soon became Playdays. When the BBC scrapped the afternoon edition of Play School in September 1985, to make way for a variety of children's programmes in the afternoon, a Sunday morning compilation was launched called Hello Again!. There were several opening sequences for Play School during its run, the first being "Here's a house, here's a door. Windows: 1 2 3 4, ready to knock? Turn the lock - It's Play School." This changed in the early seventies to "A house, with a door, 1 2 3 4, ready to play, what's the day? It's..." In this version blinds opened on the windows as the numbers were spoken.

Play School

1964

No artwork available
NR

Cabbages and Kings was an English children's television series starring Derek Griffiths which aired on BBC 1 from 1972 to 1974.

Cabbages and Kings

1972

Behind the camera