Tony Hawks

Video: Tony Hawks on providing free tennis for all

Tony Hawks, from the charity Tennis for All, believes free coaching should be provided for British children from the "massive riches" earned at Wimbledon.

Hawks believes that widening general participation is key to Britain achieving success at elite level, and tells BBC Breakfast of the plans he will take to the Lawn Tennis Association later in the year.

BBC, 24th June 2011

For those not aware of this show, The Unbelievable Truth is a panel game, and as is law when it comes to panel games, it involves David Mitchell.

He acts as host of "the panel game built on truth and lies", in which four comics deliver a lecture on a subject which is mostly lies, except for five pieces of unlikely true information which have to be smuggled past the rest of the panel.

In this week's edition, Tony Hawks gave a 'lecture' on mice, Arthur Smith on Sir Walter Raleigh, Rhod Gilbert on soup, and Mitchell's 10 O'Clock Live co-star Charlie Brooker on his specialist subject of television.

The show is rather like QI, in that it is partly about unlikely trivia. Among the things mentioned were the fact that Bruce Forsyth first appeared on the TV before World War Two began and that Raleigh's widow kept his severed head in a velvet bag which she carried around with her (although this fact has already been on QI).

Mind you, a lot of the lies mentioned are things you really hope are true, such as Swindon having a "Day of the mouse" in which the mice get to rule the town, or Raleigh farting during the coronation of Charles I.

My only problem with The Unbelievable Truth is that I think some of the facts might be wrong. One of the things that regularly crop up is obscure but daft American laws, like how in Nebraska you have to brew soup if you are also selling beer. I always suspect that these 'laws' are just made up and just included because they sound funny.

Ian Wolf, Giggle Beats, 26th April 2011

If you prefer your comedy straight up this week's Just a Minute sees panellists Tony Hawks, Josie Lawrence, Justin Moorhouse and Dave Gorman at Derby University this week, talking about mature students, Derby, paying off student loans and Zanzibar (which happens to be the name of the student bar in Derby). The players' verbal dexterity is amusing, but it's their petty squabbling and Nicholas Parsons's exasperation that provide the belly laughs. And if this show doesn't snap you out of the January blues, there's probably no helping you until spring arrives.

Celine Bijleveld, The Guardian, 21st January 2010