Artistes of the Month

Also featured: Monty Halls, Punt and Dennis

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James Martin

Immensely popular chef form Yorkshire who made a name for himself at Antony Worrall Thompson's 190 Queensgate (AWT had already spotted his talent at catering college in Scarborough). At the tender age of 22 he was head Chef at the Hotel and Bistro du Vin in Winchester, offering his signature style food - Modern British with a hint of Mediterranean.

With wide-ranging experience cooking in the chateaux of France, often side by side the mothers and grandmothers of the properties, James combines elegance with glamour. Rarely off the television screen, his own series include Out of the Frying Pan for Carlton (2003 and 2004) and Yorkshire's Finest for UKTV Food (2004). His series Stately Suppers was broadcast by the BBC early in 2006.

James is a regular member of the Ready Steady Cook team and entranced Saturday night audiences before Christmas as one of the celebrities taking part in Strictly Come Dancing on BBC1, eventually reaching the semi-finals. He is now presenting BBC 1's Saturday Kitchen.

James's multiple talents include driving fast cars and motorbikes. Nonetheless he finds the time to attract crowds at his cooking demos as well as publish a string of books, the latest of which is Great British Winter.

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Monty Halls

Whether diving storm lashed seas over the ruins of a lost civilisation in India, exchanging gunfire with poachers in Africa, or facing great white sharks off Cape Town, Monty always took the time to observe the teams under his leadership. The result is a presentation that demands seatbelts to be tightened and cigarettes to be extinguished, and an experience that is taking conferences throughout the country by storm.

The speaking circuit abounds with a bewildering array of climbers, polar explorers and mountaineers. Although extraordinary in their own way, many of the messages of these presentations are the same, drawn from projects operating in extreme conditions using specialists in remote areas beyond outside assistance.

Picture a leader who has had to mould perfectly normal individuals into effective teams, taking them on projects in every environment imaginable throughout the world. Taking disparate groups, identifying a clear aim, and then creating the momentum and techniques to overcome any obstacle to achieve results - this a challenge Monty Halls has undertaken with gusto over a decade of remarkable projects way outside the realm of normal exploration.

Monty specialises in leadership at the coalface for organisations as diverse as the Natural History Museum, the Scientific Exploration Society and an array of conservation, media and commercial groups. His levels of success on his projects today are incomparable, all based on years of observation of the individuals and teams around him. People tend to react to the team environment in certain ways, regardless of the setting or circumstances. It is the understanding precisely these group dynamics that is the key to effective leadership, and Monty's presentations reveal just why we behave the way we do when stress is applied, and how to manage such behaviour. His teams operate in some of the most rapidly changing environments on earth, and yet must learn to flex, evolve and adapt to their surroundings.

"It is not the strong that survive, nor the most intelligent, it is those with the ability to adapt to change." Charles Darwin.

Monty believes that conferences and seminars require a refreshing new approach. The days when delegates struggled to draw parallels between the summit of Everest and their working lives are over - real examples of real people under real stress are required.

Monty's presentations investigate:

o Group dynamics under pressure.
o Maintaining the aim in a changing environment.
o Effective communication.
o Getting it wonderfully right, and hideously wrong.

His style is exceptionally dynamic, light-hearted, frequently hilarious, and open to investigation and questioning from the floor.

"There is no way I can tell anyone how to run their company, just the same way as they can't tell me how to run my projects. What I can do is create a buzz, a groundswell of interest into what leadership is all about. If I can start a debate at any conference into what effective management really means, raise a few eyebrows along the way, and contribute to a noisy bar at the end of the day, then I've done my job." Monty Halls

Monty Halls is one of the country's leading explorers. He has recently returned from South Africa where he led an international project seeking out sites of pre-historic settlements beneath the wild seas off the Cape of Good Hope. The team braved giant swells, cold waters and a significant shark threat to find several great caverns that could hold the answers to the very origins of mankind as a species.

He was catapulted into the public eye in early 2002 when he led a multi-national team of adventurers and scientists on an expedition to South East India to discover the ruins of a lost civilisation beneath the sea. This was a discovery of global significance, and established Monty as one of the new stars of British exploration.

This and other projects led Channel 4 to invite Monty to take part in the major TV show "Superhumans". This two hour television special pitted ten high achievers including athletes, entrepreneurs, models, and astronauts selected from 2000 applicants throughout the UK against one another in a series of extreme tests devised by experts in human performance. After twelve tests that pushed the participants to their mental and physical limits, Monty was declared the winner in the live final watched by over a million people in May 2004.

Monty was also invited by Channel 4 to present a programme on Jules Verne's epic fantasy "Journey to the Centre of the Earth". Filming took the crew around the world, from active volcano's in Hawaii to caves in Mexico, from sweltering goldmines in South Africa to earthquake simulators in Japan. Presented by Monty throughout, the programme is a combination of swashbuckling science and raw adventure, and has recently aired to rave reviews.

Monty's first book ("Dive - The Ultimate Guide") was published in September this year, coming out at the same time as a commercial DVD ("Totally Wrecked") chronicling the adventures of a team of divers he led around the world seeking out the greatest shipwrecks in the sea.

Monty is an adventurer in the finest traditions of British exploration. A former Royal Marines Officer, he was the first to get an underwater picture of a rare crocodile species in the jungle pools of the mysterious Maya Mountains in Belize. In late 2001 he led a pioneering project 270 kilometres in sea kayaks up the inland shore of one of Africa's great rift lakes, photographing new underwater species and contacting remote villages and indigenous peoples en route. He has also photographed sharks in cave systems in South Africa, and led projects in Indonesia, Honduras and the Philippines. His television programmes have appeared on Channel 4, Carlton, Discovery, and the National Geographic channel.

"I just wanted to drop you a quick line to say how well Monty was received last week...the feedback suggests that he was one of the most preferred speakers of the day (if not THE most preferred in some cases!). He was also an absolute pleasure to work with too – very accommodating and approachable. I will certainly recommend him for future events."
Brilliant Events on Monty Halls - Monty spoke at a conference for RBS

Click here to see Monty's online video showreel

Punt and Dennis

They shot to public attention as one half of The Mary Whitehouse Experience, a popular and acclaimed sketch and monologue show on BBC Radio 1 which then transferred to television.

Following The Mary White House Experience, they had their own TV series, The Imaginatively Titled Punt and Dennis Show and worked on Jasper Carrott's shows for many years, where they performed short sketches. They also supported him on tour.

They currently have a successful and long running satirical series called The Now Show running on BBC Radio 4 as well as a weekly round-up show on Radio 2, It's Been a Bad Week.

Click here to see Punt & Dennis's online video showreel

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Further Information

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