Misplaced Pages

This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. Find sources: "Fred Harris" presenter – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Fred Harris
Born	7 May 1947
Occupation	Television presenter, comedian
Works	Play School

Fred Harris (born 7 May 1947) is a British comedian and children's television presenter. Formerly a schoolteacher, he began his television career as a presenter of the BBC children's programme Play School, on which he appeared regularly between 1973 and 1988. During this time he was also a presenter on Ragtime and Chock-A-Block.

During the rise of the microcomputer in the early 1980s he fronted several home computing BBC programmes, including Micro Live (which formed part of BBC's ongoing Computer Literacy Project). He also presented a number of educational and schools programmes on the subject of maths, including ATV's Figure it Out (memorable for having a set which included a giant pocket calculator), Central Television's Basic Maths and Channel 4's Make It Count. In 1980, Harris appeared as a contestant on the first episode of The Adventure Game.

His career in comedy involved regular appearances in radio shows such as Huddwinks, The Half-Open University, The Burkiss Way and Star Terk II and in the television show End of Part One.

In the 1990s, he presented the Radio 4 programme The Litmus Test.

From the late 1990s until circa 2009, he worked on the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) children's programme Room 785. On this show he presented the "Broom Cupboard" slot introducing the forthcoming programmes.

He is the father of playwright Ed Harris.

References

1. Guide, British Comedy. "Fred Harris". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
2. Ragtime at IMDb
3. Chockablock at IMDb
4. "BBC Computer Literacy Project Archive". Computer-literacy-project.pilots.bbcconnectedstudio.co.uk. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
5. The Litmus Test, BBC listing, 6 May 1993
6. Room 785: Meet the Gang, BFBS (via archive.org, archived 6 January 2009)

External links

• Fred Harris at IMDb
• A Chat with Fred Harris, Curious British Telly. 15 June 2020.
• Fred Harris, The TV Room. 8 May 2022, incorporating 2009 interview.
• Fred Harris in conversation with David Allen, BBC Pensioners' Association 100 Voices Project, via YouTube. 18 December 2023.

This biographical article related to British television is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• 1947 births
• Living people
• BBC television presenters
• British television presenters
• British television biography stubs