Declan Donnelly

Declan Joseph Oliver 'Dec' Donnelly (born 25 September 1975) is an English television presenter and actor, best known as one half of the English acting and TV presenting duo Ant & Dec, with the other being Anthony McPartlin.

Donnelly came to prominence in the children's drama series Byker Grove and as one half of the pop music duo PJ & Duncan. Since then, Donnelly and McPartlin have had a very successful career as television presenters, currently presenting I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! since 2002, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway since 2002, Britain's Got Talent since 2007 and Text Santa since 2011.

Before then, the duo presented other ITV entertainment series such as PokerFace, Push the Button, Pop Idol and Red or Black?.

Early life

Donnelly is the youngest of seven children born to Irish parents Alphonsus (died 2011) and Anne Donnelly. He has three brothers, Martin, Eamonn and Dermott; and three sisters, Patricia, Moyra and Camalia. His parents hailed from Desertmartin , County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, but migrated to Newcastle, where they bought a house in 1950s. The family lived in the council estate of Cruddas Park for many years and all seven children were raised there. Donnelly's future double act partner Anthony McPartlin was raised in a nearby estate but the duo only met in 1989, on the set of Byker Grove.

Amanda Holden

Amanda Louise Holden (born 16 February 1971) is an English actress, singer and presenter, best known as a judge on ITV's Britain's Got Talent since the show began in 2007.

Holden played the role of Sarah Trevanion in Wild at Heart (2006–2008) and the title role in Thoroughly Modern Millie, for which she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award. More recently she has presented various television shows for ITV including Superstar (2012), This Morning (2014–2015) and Give a Pet a Home (2015).

Career

Television

Holden's first television appearance was as a contestant on the game show Blind Date in 1991.

From 2006 to 2008, Holden appeared as Sarah Trevanian in three series of ITV's Wild at Heart co-starring Stephen Tompkinson.

Holden's other TV credits include three series of the comedy Kiss Me Kate with Caroline Quentin and Chris Langham, three series of the ITV's The Grimleys, Celeb with Harry Enfield, BBC series Hearts and Bones with Damian Lewis, the Jonathan Creek episode "The Problem at Gallowes Gate" and a Boxing Day special Marple opposite Geraldine McEwan and John Hannah. She also co-starred with Bill Nighy and Tom Courtenay in Ready When You Are, Mr McGill, Jack Rosenthal's comedy drama.

Peter Dickson (announcer)

Peter Dickson (born 23 June 1957) is a British television announcer, radio presenter and voice-over artist. He is best known as the former voice of E4, as well as the announcer for The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent, The Price Is Right, Family Fortunes, All Star Mr & Mrs, Live at the Apollo, Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow and Chris Moyles' Quiz Night.

One of the most prominent TV voice artists in the world today, Dickson has been the voice for hundreds of award winning television shows, radio programmes and advertisements.

Career

Dickson was educated at Belfast Royal Academy in his home city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. He later graduated with a BA Hons degree in psychology from Queens University, whilst being a member of the University Air Squadron. He was a reporter and journalist at the BBC later moving to the presentation department at Radio Ulster. From there he moved on to BBC Radio 2 as a newsreader and music presenter; At 17 years old he was the youngest News reader in the history of the BBC.

Britain's Got Talent

Britain's Got Talent (often shortened to BGT) is a British television talent show competition which started in June 2007 and originated from the Got Talent franchise. The show is a Thames production (formerly Talkback Thames) distributed by FremantleMedia and is produced in association with Syco TV. The show is broadcast on ITV and its sister show Britain's Got More Talent is broadcast on ITV2. Anyone of any age with some sort of talent can audition for the show. Acts compete against each other in order to gain the audience support while trying to win the title of "The winner of Britain's Got Talent''. The original judging panel consisted of the show's creator Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan. Kelly Brook was brought in as a fourth judge in series 3, but was axed after one audition site. Morgan did not return for series 5 and Cowell was only present during the live shows, while David Hasselhoff and Michael McIntyre joined the panel. Alesha Dixon and David Walliams joined the panel in series 6 as replacements for McIntyre and Hasselhoff.

Anthony McPartlin

Anthony David "Ant" McPartlin (born 18 November 1975) also known as P.J. is an English television presenter and actor, best known as one half of the English comedy and television presenting duo Ant & Dec, with the other being Declan Donnelly. He initially came to prominence in the early-to-mid-1990s in the children's drama series Byker Grove and as one half of the pop music duo PJ & Duncan.

Since the late 1990s, Ant & Dec have had a very successful career as TV presenters, fronting programmes such as SMTV Live, Friends Like These, Pop Idol, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Britain's Got Talent, PokerFace, Push the Button, Red or Black? and Text Santa. They have also returned to acting, starring in a 2002 Tribute to The Likely Lads and the 2006 film Alien Autopsy.

Career

Ant's first appearance on television was on the children's workshop programme Why Don't You? but he rose to prominence playing PJ in the Children's BBC series Byker Grove. It was here that he first met Declan Donnelly, who was cast in the part of Duncan, and real life mirrored the programme as the two became best friends both on set and off. In the guise of "PJ & Duncan AKA", they had a number of hit records, starting with "Tonight I'm Free", a song that they had performed on the show. The two left the series in 1993.