Toby Young
| Toby Young | |
|---|---|
| Born | Toby Daniel Moorsom Young Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Journalist |
Toby Young, FRSA is a British journalist and the author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, the tale of his stint in New York as a contributing editor at Vanity Fair magazine. Young served as a regular judge in seasons five and six of the Emmy Award-winning television show Top Chef[1] and is the co-founder of the West London Free School.
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[edit] Biography
Young was born in Buckinghamshire and raised in Highgate, North London, and South Devon. His mother was the BBC Radio producer, artist and writer Sasha Moorsom[2] and his father was Michael Young, the Labour life peer and pioneering sociologist who coined the word "meritocracy".[3]
[edit] Education
Young was educated at Creighton School (now Fortismere School), Muswell Hill; King Edward VI Community College, Totnes; and William Ellis School, Highgate. After failing most of his O-levels, he got two Bs and a C at A-level and managed to get in to Oxford after Brasenose College sent him an acceptance letter by mistake. He got a First in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and, after a six-month stint as a News Trainee at The Times, went to Harvard University as a Fulbright scholar, where he worked as a teaching fellow in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, followed by Trinity College, Cambridge, becoming a teaching assistant in the Social and Political Sciences Faculty. During his two years at Cambridge he was carrying out research for a doctorate which he didn't complete. He is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Buckingham.
[edit] Career
In 1991 he co-founded and co-edited the Modern Review with Julie Burchill and her then husband Cosmo Landesman. Its motto was "Low culture for highbrows". In 1995 the magazine was close to financial ruin and Young closed it down, angering his principal financial backer Peter York.[4] This decision led to a fierce public battle with Burchill and staff writer Charlotte Raven.[4]
Young moved to New York City shortly afterward to work for Vanity Fair.[5] After being sacked by Vanity Fair in 1998, Young remained in New York for a further two years, working as a columnist at New York Press. He returned to the UK in 2000 and is currently an associate editor of The Spectator, where he writes a weekly column, and a blogger for The Daily Telegraph.
He has performed in the West End in a stage adaptation of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and, in 2005, co-wrote (with fellow Spectator journalist Lloyd Evans) a sex farce about the David Blunkett/Kimberley Quinn scandal and the "Sextator" affairs of Boris Johnson and Rod Liddle called Who's the Daddy?.[6] It was named Best New Comedy at the 2006 Theatregoers' Choice Awards.[7]
From 2002 to 2007, Young wrote a weekly restaurant column for The Evening Standard and he continues to write about restaurants for a variety of British publications. In addition to serving as a judge on Top Chef, Young has competed in the Channel 4 TV series Come Dine With Me, appeared as one of the panel of food critics in the 2008 BBC Two series Eating with the Enemy and served as a judge on Hell's Kitchen.[8]
British producer Stephen Woolley and his wife, Elizabeth Karlsen, produced the film adaptation How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, in conjunction with FilmFour. Simon Pegg played Young, who co-produced the film.[9] The film was released in Britain on October 3, 2008 and reached the number one spot at the box office in its opening week.[10][11]
Young co-produced and co-wrote When Boris Met Dave, a drama-documentary for Channel 4 about the relationship between Eton and Oxford University contemporaries Mayor of London Boris Johnson and current Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister David Cameron, which aired on More4 on 7 October 2009.[12]
In addition to How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Young is the author of The Sound of No Hands Clapping (2006) and How to Set Up a Free School (2011). He is currently writing a book for Viking about education and class.
Young is the lead proposer and co-founder of the West London Free School, the first free school in Britain to sign a Funding Agreement with the Secretary of State for Education, and now serves as the school's chair of governors.[13][14] The school has become the focus of national opposition to the Coalition's free schools policy.[15]
[edit] Personal life
Young is married to Caroline Bondy with whom he has four children.[16]
[edit] References
- ^ What's Cooking with Season 5 of Top Chef?" TV Guide. November 12, 2008. Retrieved on November 12, 2008.
- ^ "Sasha Moorsom: 1931-1993", The Guardian, 1993. Retrieved on 20 May 2010.
- ^ "Comment: Down with meritocracy", The Guardian, 29 June 2001. Retrieved on 14 February 2010.
- ^ a b Lynn Barber "Forever Young", The Observer, 3 September 2006. Retrieved on 23 June 2007.
- ^ "The master of foot-in-mouth syndrome - Toby Young interview", by Alice Wyllie, The Scotsman, 03 October 2008
- ^ Sarah Lyall "A very British 'documentary farce'", International Herald Tribune, 25 August 2005 reprinting a New York Times article. Retrieved on 23 June 2007.
- ^ "Toby Young". BBC News. Friday, 8 September 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/review/panel/5327292.stm. Retrieved 2008-10-22.
- ^ "Archive of Toby Young's Restaurant Reviews", "The Evening Standard".
- ^ "Simon Pegg is Toby Young in How to Lose Friends adaptation", Empire, 14 August 2006. Retrieved on 23 June 2007.
- ^ "UK Box Office: 3-5 October 2008" , BFI. Retrieved on 14 February 2010.
- ^ "Ricky Gervais's clout at the UK box office is no lie", The Guardian, 6 October 2009. Retrieved on 14 February 2010.
- ^ "Last Night's TV", The Times, 8 October 2009. Retrieved on 20 May 2010.
- ^ "Toby Young's battle to set up a new school", BBC2, 8 December 2009. Retrieved on 18 May 2010.
- ^ "Free Schools: Toby Young's is first to get go ahead"
- ^ "Guardian article on the controversy over Toby Young's school"
- ^ "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People: living with Toby Young", by Caroline Bondy, The Times, September 30, 2008
[edit] External reviews
- Toby Young Official site
- Toby Young at the Internet Movie Database
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