© Charlie Jordan 2010

Charlie Jordan

Radio presenter, poet, event host and workshop facilitator

In her radio career Charlie has presented frontline shows for stations including Radio 1, Radio 2, LBC, BBC London, BFBS, Capital Fm, BBC WM, Magic 105.4, BRMB and Heart Fm. Currently heard on Smooth Radio in the West Midlands presenting a Sunday morning show and providing cover for the Breakfast Show; she’s equally at home presenting speech and music programmes.

Charlie has a dynamic stage presence; she hosted the 2010 Brit Writers Award at London’s O2, the National CIPR awards at the Birmingham Town Hall, and the Princes Trust ‘Celebrate Success Awards’. She presented awards at 'Style Birmingham' and at the ‘Muslim Writers Awards’ with Jermaine Jackson. At the NEC, she’s a regular at the Experts stages at the ‘Good Food Show’ with James Martin and at ‘The Clothes Show’, where Gok Wan ‘rearranged her bangers’…. At Merry Hill she has compered seasonal fashion and shopping events and the Christmas Lights switch on with Jason Donovan.

As a former Birmingham Poet Laureate, Charlie recently completed an Artist’s residency at WBA Football Club. She would like to claim credit for their Premiership Promotion, but concedes that the Players’ poetic goals were as important as her inspired rhymes. This was part of the www.myplaceoryours.org.uk national project with Apples and Snakes, and included a live show at the Big Chill festival. Charlie even appeared on BBC1 in her WBA shirt delivering freshly scribed football chants alongside a Wolves fan, who joined in. Such is the power of poetry:)

In education, Charlie runs workshops that lift poems off the page and engage pupils with live performance poetry. She runs dynamic sessions where young people write and perform their own work in ‘Poetry Slams’, where even non-traditional learners become more confident with words and literacy.  She works with pupils of all ages, including those at risk of exclusion or already in Pupil Referral Units. She’s worked with young people with Autism, and has run projects with looked after children, young carers and ‘gifted and talented’ young writers. She’s also run a creative partnership project setting up a school radio station and empowering year 3 and 4 pupils to write and perform news/sport reports and plays based on local histories.

Charlie’s first show 'Buddhism and Ben & Jerrys' was showcased at the Bristol Old Vic and has also been performed at The Birmingham Rep and The Custard Factory in 2010.  This was for the Lit-Up Festival, where Charlie represented the West Midlands as the Associate Artist, working with MAC.  The show is currently being extended, which involves arduous research into several new ice cream flavours…