Oludotun Adebayo, Radio Five’s Night Rider, comes into the light

The distinguished journalist and political activist Oludotun Adebayo has his faithful night-time radio listeners. He is now gaining a wider daytime audience

I am a part-time insomniac, working with a zero sleep-hours contract. My normal remedy is to turn the pesky brain-signals into a blog post. My alternative approach is to listen to the relaxing items on the BBC Five’s Up All Night radio programme master-minded by the amiable Oludotun (Dotun) Adebayo.

Background

Dotun Grew up in Tottenham, and won a scholarship to read Scandinavian literature at Stockholm. He founded The X Press publishing house and has been working for the BBC since 1993. He was awarded an MBE for services to the arts in 2009, and is married to pop singer Carroll Thompson

He has been presenter of Up All Night since Nov 2001.  His books include the cult classics Sperm Bandits (2002) and Can I Have My Balls Back Please (2003)

The Young Entrepreneur

He gives an indication of his background as a young boy whose family moved from Lagos to England [in an article he wrote for The Voice a few years ago] :

I was sent to work at a store at the age of 12 to help with the family finances. I didn’t fool my work colleagues at the time, but I would have sworn an affidavit there and then that I was the requisite age of 16, so proud was I of being able to help my folks out at a time of crisis.

In such circumstances, the superiority of that African heritage understanding of family and duty, and the respect you have to show your parents, shines through. Add to that the improvisation of the poor to make ends meet, and I suppose any child would have gone to court to swear an affidavit that all known birth records were lost in a fire in Lagos, Nigeria.

I would have said: ‘I, Oludotun Adebayo, swear that I was born four years earlier than I actually was, and the fact that I look like I’m not old enough to be a teenager is neither here nor there. And neither is the fact I, unlike any other 16-year-old, haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about when you ask me about my O’ levels.’

Now the Night Rider of Radio 5 has been given an afternoon slot. Will he yield to the temptation to head for the Marmite fame of a celebrity broadcaster?

Acknowledgement

To Conor for researching into Adabayo’s biography.

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