Soanes, Zeb

Zeb trained as an actor and graduated from the University of East Anglia where he was spotted by the BBC.  He initially worked in the newsroom at BBC Radio Norfolk before moving to London in September 1998 to join the Presentation department at BBC Television Centre as a continuity announcer on BBC One and BBC Two.  In September 2001, he took a six-month attachment to BBC Radio 4, returning to TV as the first voice to launch the new digital channel BBC Four on 2nd March 2002, where he remained its sole announcer for ten months.  He returned to BBC Two briefly, where he signed off for the last time at 12.30am on Friday 7th February 2003 and took up a full-time position at BBC Radio 4 the following Monday.

He is a Radio 4 newsreader for those who wake up to Today and has become well-known for reading the shipping forecast.  He is also regular on BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz, reports for From Our Own Correspondent and has presented BBC Radio 3’s Saturday Classics.  Sunday Times readers voted him their favourite male voice on UK radio in July 2015.

In 2006, he made his in-vision television debut for the BBC Proms and has presented films for The Culture Show, Newsnight and Songs of Praise.  Zeb has also acted in radio dramas with Toby Jones, Simon Russell Beale and David Warner; he played Derek Nimmo in the story of the ecclesiastical comedy series’ All Gas and Gaiters.

Outside the BBC, he has introduced major live events for the Royal Opera House (relayed to large screens around the UK) and hosted classical concerts around the country.  He was the Voice of God in the Aldeburgh Festival production of Noye’s Fludde to conclude the Benjamin Britten Centenary and has made a new recording of Walton’s Façade conducted by John Wilson.  Other concert work with orchestras includes: Peter and the Wolf; Little Red Riding Hood; The Snowman.  In November 2017, he gave the most complete live performance of John Betjeman’s cult album Banana Blush for over 30 years, at St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

He is the patron of Awards for Young Musicians and the British Association of Performing Arts Medicine.  In 2018, Gaspard the Fox, written by Zeb and illustrated by James Mayhew was published by Graffeg Ltd.

Personal information

Clips of Zeb on The TV Room

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