I am Russell Clarke, a London-based writer, broadcaster and after-dinner speaker known as the Rock’n’Roll Routemaster. I specialise in rock music history, can be heard regularly on the radio and have developed a number of very entertaining after-dinner shows packed with rock and roll stories and trivia which I deliver for audiences up and down the country.

In 2019 I took one of them, The Chain of Trivia, to the Edinburgh Fringe for a 3-week run at the Surgeons Hall. As the Rock’n’Roll Routemaster, I have been a regular contributor to BBC Radio London’s Robert Elms Show since 2009. I am also BBC local radio’s go-to guy for anything rock and roll and have appeared regularly on Radio 5 Live, the World Service and  National Public Radio in the United States.

I attended Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Blackburn and later Westfield College, University of London, where against all expectations I got a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and Classics. Since graduating I have enjoyed a long, reasonably lucrative but not very rock ‘n’ roll career in sales and marketing.

My father’s family are from Kensal Green, north west London so I’m Queen’s Park Rangers man and boy and a season ticket holder – through the ups though mainly downs – since 1983. Sitting two rows behind me since 1990 has been Robert Elms and more recently his son Alfie. If there’s an away game, the three of us, plus mate Bobby Cappa can usually be found in my VW Golf on the way to the ground. Manchester Utd? Got home at 4 in the morning. Chelsea? Won one-nil! Oxford pre-season? Went to the wrong stadium. Stevenage? Been there and met the World’s Most Inhospitable Landlady at the ironically-named ‘Our Mutual Friend’.

Feel free to drop me a line if you’ve enjoy6ed any of the stuff I’ve done on the radio.

Click below to download a couple of images.

Rock on

Russell Clarke
The Rock’n’Roll Routemaster