Charlie Connelly

Charlie Connelly is a bestselling author and award-winning broadcaster. He is the author of ten books, including the bestselling 'Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round The Shipping Forecast', and 'And Did Those Feet…: Walking Through 2000 Years Of British And Irish History'. 'Attention All Shipping' is one of the biggest selling travel narratives of the past decade, was a Radio 4 Book of the Week, and the audio version was voted the second greatest audiobook of all time in a Guardian/Waterstones poll in August 2008. 'And Did Those Feet' was also a Radio 4 Book of the Week, read by Martin Freeman. Charlie was a presenter on the BBC Holiday programme, his first film for which won the Silver Thistle Award for international broadcasting. He co-presented the first three series of Traveller’s Tree with Fi Glover for BBC Radio 4 and devised and presented the acclaimed documentary 'Noel Coward, The Poet' for the same channel. He has been a regular guest on 'Excess Baggage' and has also appeared on BBC Radio 2, RTÉ Radio 1, Newstalk 106.2 and BBC Five Live. Charlie was shortlisted for the 2008 British Guild of Travel Writers’ Radio Award for his work on Traveller’s Tree. He has written for a number of publications including The Guardian, The Times, New Statesman, Arena, Irish Times, Sunday Times, Glasgow Herald and - much to his accountant’s amusement - the Financial Times. He has also written comedy scripts for RTÉ Radio One and wrote the well-received comedy show What’s The Story?, broadcast in January 2011, for the same channel. Charlie is a popular and entertaining public speaker, having lectured at the Royal Geographical Society, sold out the Edinburgh Festival and spoken at numerous events and festivals with venues for his solo appearances ranging from a sold out Glasgow Royal Concert Hall to the Toller Porcorum Village Hall in Dorset. He has sung Blue Moon of Kentucky live on Uzbek national television with the country’s biggest pop star, is an official ambassador for a breakaway Lithuanian republic, was once hounded by the UK national press after being falsely accused of intending to invade Rockall, was presented with an honorary team shirt with his name on by the Liechtenstein national football team and has been chased across the Great Plain by Hungarian gangsters. They thought he was someone else, but fortunately he didn’t notice until they were arrested. Charlie was born and raised in London. He now lives in Dublin.