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Nigel Wrench

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Nigel Wrench
Born
Stephen Wrench
Occupation(s)Radio presenter, Reporter
Known forInterviewing Winnie Mandela and Banksy; HIV activism

Stephen Wrench, known professionally as Nigel Wrench, is a British radio presenter and reporter. In the 1980s, he reported extensively from South Africa, and later in London worked for twenty years for the BBC.

Career

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South Africa

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Wrench's first radio job was with Capital Radio 604, which provided the first independent source of broadcast news in South Africa.

At Turnstyle News, an independent Johannesburg-based radio news agency, Wrench reported for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the UK-based Independent Radio News and London Broadcasting Company.

In December 1985, he was among those detained briefly by police when reporting the illegal return of Winnie Mandela to Soweto.[1]

Reporting on demonstrations in Windhoek, Namibia, in September 1988, he was among those beaten up by police.[2]

Wrench was also a pop music columnist for the Mail & Guardian[3] and reported on Johannesburg's thriving underground nightlife.

BBC

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In 1989 Wrench joined the BBC as a London-based reporter for the Today programme. In 1990, he was among the reporters at the prison gates when Nelson Mandela walked free.[4] Wrench reported from a wide variety of other locations for BBC Radio including Jerusalem, St Petersburg, Bucharest, Kyiv and Bosnia.

Wrench was a founding co-host of Out This Week, an LGBT+ news programme on BBC Radio 5 Live for which he won a Sony Radio Award. He later won a New York Radio Award for his 1998 Radio 4 documentary Aids and Me,[5] while also regularly co-presenting the Radio 4 programme PM.[6] Wrench's spell as culture reporter for PM, saw him interviewing leading artists, performers, playwrights and novelists as well as reporting regularly from the Edinburgh Festival.[7]

Wrench interviewed Banksy on PM at the opening of "Turf War", the first Banksy exhibition in London in 2003.[8]

Among Wrench's many radio documentaries was a major BBC World Service series Pills, Patients and Profits[9] which examined the global pharmaceutical industry.

2015 - present

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In February 2015 Wrench released ZA86,[10] a limited-edition cassette, through specialist label The Tapeworm.[11] A sleeve note describes it as: "apartheid South Africa, 1986, through the headphones of a young radio reporter".[12] A review in The Quietus took the opportunity to sum up his career: "Few journalists have quite so intimately captured the essence of their era's great moral panics as Nigel Wrench".[13]

Wrench's second cassette for Tapeworm, ZA87,[14] a piece of audio verité documenting a political funeral in Soweto in 1987, was released in March 2021.

Wrench was for many years a voluntary director of Duckie Ltd, the award-winning LGBT+ performance group.[15]

Nigel Wrench now uses the name he was born with, Stephen Wrench, and has contributed, among others, an interview with Lloyd Russell-Moyle for Brighton's Gscene magazine.[16]

In April 2022, Wrench released a field recording called /Disco/Football recorded at non league alt-football outfit Whitehawk FC.

"Switch Off That Machine",released in May 2025, is a third collection of archive recordings intended, a sleeve note says, as “a warning for the present and the future, from the past of apartheid South Africa", digitally free on Bandcamp[17] and as a limited edition compact disc. Bandcamp rated "Switch Off That Machine" as one of 'The Best Field Recordings of May 2025'.[18]

Banksy interview

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In November 2023, Wrench's full interview with Banksy was released by the BBC[19] in which Banksy reveals his first name as "Robbie",[20] in a podcast[21] which attracted worldwide attention.[22][23][24]

HIV activism

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Wrench came out as HIV-positive in 1994, in a speech while accepting his Sony Radio Award.[25] He wrote extensively about living with HIV and AIDS, including a regular column for the Pink Paper[26] and made a television documentary called From Russia With Love for BBC3 in 2003.[27] He remains the only broadcaster with a declared AIDS diagnosis to broadcast a live BBC Radio programme, after he returned from a brush with death from PCP, an AIDS-related pneumonia, to work behind the microphone at the PM programme in 1996.[28] Later, Wrench wrote of being a long-term survivor of AIDS[29] for Brighton's Scene magazine in November 2021, saying "there are costs to this survival. There are the side effects of both medication and HIV itself, usually with long names: peripheral neuropathy causing constant pins and needles in hands and feet; lipodystrophy, which means I'm a really weird shape and pancreatic insufficiency which requires a handful of pills to digest food".[30] In May 2025, Wrench released a third collection of archive recordings, ’Switch Off That Machine', available digitally free on Bandcamp[17] and to buy as a limited edition compact disc. Bandcamp rated it as one of 'The Best Field Recordings of May 2025'.[18]

Personal life

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In 2008 Wrench was found not guilty of rape.[31]

Wrench now lives in Brighton where, along with being a fan of non-league Whitehawk FC[32] as one of the non-racist, non-sexist, non-homophobic Hawks Ultras,[33] he is also a volunteer shepherd.[34]

References

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  1. ^ Cowell, Alan (23 December 1985). "WINNIE MANDELA JAILED FOR RETURN TO SOWETO HOME". The New York Times.
  2. ^ Vries, Da'oud. "Nothing Changes" (PDF). The Namibian. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 24 January 2015.
  3. ^ Manoim, Irwin (1996). You have been warned : the first ten years of the Mail & Guardian. London, England: Viking. p. 35. ISBN 0670867926.
  4. ^ Popham, Mike (1990). The Best of From Our Own Correspondent 1989/90. London: Broadside Books. p. 127. ISBN 0951562924.
  5. ^ "Aids and Me". BBC News.
  6. ^ Elmes, Simon (2007). And Now on Radio 4. London: Arrow Books. p. 217. ISBN 9780099505372.
  7. ^ Mulholland, Tara (21 August 2008). "Fringe festival sounds a somber note". The New York Times.
  8. ^ "Banksy's Bristol". BBC Bristol. Retrieved 11 March 2015.
  9. ^ "Pills, Patients and Profits". BBC World Service. BBC. Archived from the original on 14 August 2004.
  10. ^ Bath, Tristan (11 March 2015). "Spool's Out: Tape reviews for March". The Quietus. Retrieved 11 March 2015.
  11. ^ "ZA86, by Nigel Wrench". The Digital Archive of Tapeworm. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  12. ^ "The Tapeworm presents .... ZA86". The Tapeworm. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  13. ^ "The Quietus | Features | Spool's Out | Spool's Out: Tape Reviews for March by Tristan Bath". 11 March 2015.
  14. ^ https://the-tapeworm.bandcamp.com/album/za87 [dead link]
  15. ^ "DUCKIE Ltd people - Find and update company information - GOV.UK".
  16. ^ "Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP - A unique MP for a unique constituency in a unique city". Scene Magazine - From the heart of LGBTQ+ Life. 3 March 2019.
  17. ^ a b "Switch Off That Machine". the-tapeworm.bandcamp.com. Retrieved 2 October 2025.
  18. ^ a b Blackwell, Matthew (4 June 2025). "The Best Field Recordings on Bandcamp, May 2025". daily.bandcamp.com. Bandcamp. Retrieved 2 October 2025.
  19. ^ "Banksy: Street artist 'confirms' first name in lost BBC interview". BBC News. 21 November 2023. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
  20. ^ "'It's Robbie'—Banksy (apparently) reveals first name in 2003 BBC interview". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. 21 November 2023. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
  21. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Banksy Story - Downloads". BBC. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
  22. ^ "Banksy revealed his real name 20 years ago? A just-found BBC Radio interview says yes". Los Angeles Times. 21 November 2023. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
  23. ^ "Banksy is 'Robbie' -- artist reveals first name in 2003 interview". France 24. 21 November 2023. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
  24. ^ "Banksy: lo street artist rivela il suo nome in una vecchia intervista alla BBC". La Stampa (in Italian). 21 November 2023. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
  25. ^ Buchanan, Justine (1996). "London Bridges". POZ. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  26. ^ Watney, Simon (11 September 2002). Imagine Hope. Routledge. ISBN 1135433666.
  27. ^ Wrench, Nigel (15 May 2003). "Living with HIV in Russia". BBC Nes.
  28. ^ "It's a matter of being positive". The Independent. 25 November 1998. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  29. ^ "Long-Term Survivors of HIV". The Well Project. 8 November 2023. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  30. ^ "Scene Magazine - November 2021 by Scene LGBTQ+ Magazine - Issuu". issuu.com. 31 October 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
  31. ^ "Presenter cleared of raping man". BBC NEWS. 8 February 2008. Retrieved 2 October 2025.
  32. ^ "Whitehawk FC – Welcome to the official Whitehawk FC website". 14 November 2023. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  33. ^ Team, Gscene Editorial (12 April 2020). "Whitehawk Ultras - LGBTQ+ allies". Scene Magazine - From the heart of LGBTQ+ Life. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  34. ^ "BBC Countryfile visits Brighton". www.brighton-hove.gov.uk. 2 April 2019. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
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