John Aleck SuchetOBE (/ˈsuːʃeɪ/SOO-shay; born 29 March 1944) is an English author, television news journalist and presenter of classical music on Classic FM. His journalistic career began when he worked as a graduate trainee at the Reuters news agency in 1967 and later joined BBC News as a sub-editor for the Nine O'Clock News from 1970 to 1971. Suchet worked at Independent Television News (ITN) as a scriptwriter/sub-editor from 1972 and was a newsreader and reporter until his retirement from ITN in 2004.
Suchet has two brothers, one of whom is the actor Sir David Suchet.
Suchet was brought up with his two brothers, David and Peter, in London.[8] He attended Uppingham School in Rutland,[9] and played the trombone and piano.[10] Suchel enrolled at Queen's College, Dundee (then a part of the University of St Andrews, now the University of Dundee), graduating in 1967 with a 2:2 in philosophy and political science.[3] His younger brother, David, is an actor, who portrayed Hercule Poirot in the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot.[11] His youngest brother Peter is a retired advertising executive with Saatchi & Saatchi London.[12]
Career
Suchet was passionate about languages and the news while at St. Andrews and combined both to make journalism as his career path.[13][14] He began working in journalism in 1967, when he was taken on as a graduate trainee by the Reuters news agency after applications to the BBC trainee scheme and Scottish Television proved unsuccessful. During that year he learned the basics of straightforward, unbiased news reporting. Suchet worked on Reuters's Middle Eastern desk before going to the African desk and the World desk. He was later assigned to Reuters's Paris bureau in 1968 and reported on the May 68 student riots in the French capital.[14][15]
He decided to try to get into television and had a brief spell at BBC Television News as a sub-editor for the Nine O'Clock News in 1971 and 1972 after the corporation had no vacancies for a foreign correspondent.[13][15][16] Suchet joined Independent Television News (ITN) as a scriptwriter/sub-editor in August 1972.[14][17] He became a reporter in 1976,[18] and over the next decade he covered major national and international news stories, including the Iranian revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Philippines Revolution.[14][19] Suchet was barred from Iran in September 1979 because he was informed by officials hat he would not be allowed to enter the nation without acquiring a special Press visa.[20]
He read the news for ITN from 1981 to 1983 and again from 1986 to 2004.[18] In February 1987, Suchet began presenting the half-hour nightly English-language ITN Super Channel News bulletin on the Super Channel satellite television service,[21][22] having been loaned to the channel by ITN.[23] He read the lunchtime bulletin ITN News at 12:30 in 1987 until he was relieved by Julia Somerville,[24] and joined the bulletin full-time on 2 May 1989 after leaving Super Channel.[25] He presented every ITN bulletin, including News at Ten. In March 1992, Suchet became the main presenter of the Early Evening News bulletin, replacing Fiona Armstrong and Carol Barnes until 1999.[26][27]
He retired from ITN in April 2004.[33] He later presented Five News, initially for a six-month period from January 2006,[34][35] until his retirement from news reading in 2007.[36] Suchet has also been a guest presenter for ITV's This Morning, as well as being a guest panellist on Five's The Wright Stuff. He hosted the revival of the quiz show Going for Gold on Channel 5 from 2008 to 2009.[37][38]
Classical music
In July 2010, Suchet joined Classic FM as the regular host of the Sunday lunchtime music show (12:00–15:00). He had first appeared on the station in 2004 as guest presenter of the Composer's Notes series in which he examined the finances and wealth of famous composers. In September 2010 it was announced that he would be presenting the Classic FM weekday morning show (9:00–13:00) from January 2011, taking over from the show's previous host Simon Bates.[39] This quickly became Classic FM's most listened-to show, with over 3 million listeners per week. He received two international awards for this show, from the Association for International Broadcasting and the New York Festivals. In 2020 he began hosting Classic FM's daily evening concert and continued to do so until 1 July 2022.[40]
Suchet is an authority on the life and music of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven, and has become one of the UK's leading experts on Beethoven and his work. He has published seven books on Beethoven, beginning with the three-volume biographical novelThe Last Master (1996 to 1998).[36] This was followed by The Friendly Guide to Beethoven (2006), The Treasures of Beethoven (2008), Beethoven – The Man Revealed (2012),[41] and Beethoven – The Man Revealed (special anniversary edition, 2020). Another, In Search of Beethoven: A Personal Journey, is due in October 2024.[42]
Suchet has also published biographies of Johann Strauss the Younger, The Last Waltz – The Strauss Dynasty and Vienna (2015), Mozart – The Man Revealed (2016), Verdi - The Man Revealed (2017) and Tchaikovsky – The Man Revealed (2018).[43]
Personal life
He is the father of RT presenter Rory Suchet, one of three sons from his first marriage to his wife Mora that lasted from 1968 until it ended in divorce at London Divorce Court on 4 April 1984.[9][44][45]
Suchet and his second wife Bonnie had five grown-up sons between them from previous marriages. In 2006, Bonnie was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in her early 60s.[11] Suchet appeared on the mainstream ITN/ITV and BBC news bulletins on 17 February 2009 to talk about this, to raise awareness of the disease and to campaign on behalf of Admiral Nurses.[46][47] He explained that Bonnie would have no idea that he was on the news programmes. Bonnie died in 2015.[18] He published his memoirs My Bonnie: How Dementia Stole the Love of My Life in 2010.[41]
In July 2016, John Suchet married Nula Black. She is the author of 2019 book The Longest Farewell, an account of her former husband James's dementia, and meeting Suchet via Bonnie at the care home.[48]
Honours and awards
Suchet has received several honours for his work as a television reporter and newscaster.[41] He received the Royal Television Society's (RTS) 1986 Journalist of the Year award for his coverage of the Philippines Revolution, the citation commending his ability "to bring clarity to confused situations".[49] In March 1996 he received the Television and Radio Industries Club's Newscaster/Reporter of the Year Award.[50] Suchet was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Dundee in 2000,[51] and he was appointed an honorary fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2001 for his work on Beethoven.[17]
