The One Show favourite Owain Wyn Evans reflects on career journey: "I've had people tell me to not be as camp"

We live in Penarth, a seaside town just outside of Cardiff. It’s the fifth house that my husband Arran and I have renovated, but we’ve always done it as somewhere to live, as opposed to making money from it. In our living room, we didn’t want the TV to be the focal point, so it’s in a corner on an old table from my grandmother’s house.

You’re quite the expert, given you host the interiors podcast Love What You’ve Done with the Place. How did you want to decorate your current home?

It’s become a bit of a gallery space, because we both love nice furniture, and I collect vintage disco lights. When I turned 40 [Wyn Evans is 42], I saw this huge glitterball at a vintage market. It’s from a nightclub in Cardiff and is so unnecessarily camp – it’s on a hand crank, so I can basically winch it up and down, which I do every Friday! People love Deborah the glitter ball.

What have you enjoyed watching on TV recently?

I love cookery programmes so MasterChef and Great British Menu are appointment-to-view in this house. I also love DIY shows, which is why working on Homes under the Hammer is a bit of a dream come true.

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You started your broadcasting career when you were 18 on the Welsh children’s news programme Ffeil on S4C. Did you always want to be on TV?

No, I didn’t actually. I loved drums, so I wanted to be a session drummer, and I also wanted to be a theatrical lighting designer. Then I saw the BBC Wales job as a kids’ TV host. At the time, I remember feeling like I was the only working-class person in the newsroom. It was a baptism of fire, in that I wasn’t familiar with this world at all. A lot of the time if you come from a working-class background, you’ve got to work harder – not just in this industry, which is getting better, but in all sorts of industries.

Earlier in your career people told you to “tone it down”. How did you respond to that?

I’ve had people tell me to not be as camp. I’ve even had people tell me not to come out at all. It did affect me, and at the time I found it really hard to deal with. But when I started doing the weather [on BBC Wales Today in 2012], I was having lots of conversations with Arran about it, and I realised if you try to hide who you are, you’re never going to win. So I’d wear suits with pocket squares, and I still do that on Homes under the Hammer. Why not wear a lovely dusky pink suit in an absolutely filthy house that needs to be renovated? It’s the same on the radio – I get to totally be me.

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In 2021 you raised over £3 million for Children in Need after completing a 24-hour drumathon. Did you get a lot of opportunities after that?

My phone was blowing up! I became the drumming weatherman. When I was doing the drumathon, [sports scientist and Olympian] Greg Whyte, who trains a lot of the celebrities for Comic Relief challenges, said, “Don’t underestimate how much this is going to change your life. Everyone will want to talk to you about this.” Even now, people come up to me about it several times a week! I think it’s amazing how it touched so many people. When I was younger, I had really bad social anxiety. It still happens sometimes, but the drums allow me to be myself. It’s helped me so much through my life.

Listen to Owain Wyn Evans on the BBC Radio 2 Early Breakfast Show every weekday from 4am. Listen to Love What You’ve Done with the Place on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts

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