About

Classic FM

Zeb Soanes presents Relaxing Evenings on Classic FM, the UK's most popular classical music station. His nightly show, broadcast from 7–10pm, regularly attracts 1.3 million listeners each week.

Special programmes have included Dame Judi's Classical Favourites, in which Judi Dench shared her favourite pieces of classical music; Sir Simon Russell Beale's Life in Music, recorded live with the choir of St Martin-in-the-Fields; and an interview with Cynthia Erivo focusing on her singing technique for the film Wicked. In December 2022, Classic FM broadcast the premiere of Zeb's charity children's book Gaspard's Christmas, which he narrated with a score by Jonathan Dove, performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

BBC Career

For over 20 years Zeb was an authoritative newsreader and the reassuring voice of The Shipping Forecast to millions of listeners on BBC Radio 4. He announced some of the most significant events in recent memory, from the final result of the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump to the unfolding of the coronavirus pandemic. He was a regular fixture on The News Quiz, reported for From Our Own Correspondent, and presented Saturday Classics on BBC Radio 3. Sunday Times readers voted him their favourite male voice on UK radio. On his departure from the BBC, Director General Tim Davie wrote: "I, like millions of the audience, will miss you. Your voice has been a lyrical, clear and reassuring presence — the very heart of Radio 4."

The Shipping Forecast

His long association with The Shipping Forecast has taken him to remarkable places: reading it from the top of Orfordness lighthouse, at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, and to open London Fashion Week — prompting Vogue to describe him as "a BBC radio presenter whose voice sounds like a massage feels."

He has recorded special forecasts for several television dramas, including Sherlock, for which he added the new sea area of "Sherrinford" (a secret facility in secured waters), and reads the forecast over the opening titles of the ITV detective series Grace. He also recorded it for Sandi Toksvig's play Silver Lining, produced by English Touring Theatre, and for the National Theatre's 2023 production of Odysseus. He wrote the foreword to The Shipping Forecast Puzzle Book (Penguin Books).

Television

Zeb launched BBC Four on 2nd March 2002, as the first voice to welcome viewers to the new channel. He went on to appear regularly on BBC Four as a presenter for the BBC Proms, interviewing leading musicians and conductors including Gianandrea Noseda, András Schiff and Stephen Hough. Across BBC television he has presented films for The Culture Show, Newsnight and Songs of Praise; made cameos in Sherlock and The League of Gentlemen; and competed in the 2019 Christmas special of University Challenge. He was the brand voice of BBC Store, the forerunner to BritBox.

Live Events

Zeb has hosted major live events to audiences of over 8,000 in Trafalgar Square for the Royal Opera House, relayed to screens across the UK, and has presented concerts at the Southbank Centre and Royal Albert Hall. At literary festivals including Hay and Edinburgh he chairs discussions with bestselling authors, among them Francesca Simon, Patrick Gale and David Walliams. He has presented the Royal British Legion's annual Remembrance Assembly, live-streamed to schools across the UK in association with the National Literacy Trust.

Classical Concerts

Zeb has earned a reputation as "the go-to person for music narration" (Daily Telegraph) with the UK's leading orchestras, ensembles and choirs, performing beloved works including The History of Babar the Little Elephant, Paddington's First Concert and Peter and the Wolf. He was the Voice of God in the Aldeburgh Festival production of Noye's Fludde, concluding the Benjamin Britten Centenary in 2013, and is a frequent reciter of Walton's Façade, including a critically acclaimed recording conducted by John Wilson.

In 2016 at St Martin-in-the-Fields he gave the first full live performance of  Banana Blush, the cult 1974 album of Sir John Betjeman's poetry set to music by Jim Parker. He was awarded the 2025 Betjeman Society Award for his 50th anniversary tour of the album.

He was appointed patron of the Thaxted Festival in 2020.

Acting

Before his broadcasting career, Zeb trained as an actor and toured the UK in classic plays, including As You Like It, Henry IV Part 1, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, The Tempest, Charley's Aunt, Hay Fever, Present Laughter and Lady Windermere's Fan.

His BBC Radio drama credits include No, Prime Minister; Beautiful Dreamers; The Symphony for All Creation (with Toby Jones); Dead Girls Tell No Tales (with Simon Russell Beale); and the role of Derek Nimmo in All Mouth and Trousers, the story of the classic BBC comedy series All Gas and Gaiters. He played the sinister librarian to David Warner's Doctor Who for Big Finish Productions, and in the short film Mayday, starring Juliet Stevenson, relayed the unfolding chaos of a London earthquake.

During the 2020 coronavirus lockdown he created CelebriTEAS, a comedy podcast in which he impersonated his theatrical heroes to raise money for the Equity Benevolent Fund and Acting for Others. It received praise from Williams' biographer Russell Davies and from Stephen Fry.

Two Halves of Guinness

In 2026 Zeb returned to the stage in a one-man show playing his theatrical hero Sir Alec Guinness. As a teenager he had written to Guinness and received a handwritten note of encouragement in reply. Two Halves of Guinness, written by Mark Burgess and directed by Selina Cadell, follows Guinness as he reflects on his distinguished but enigmatic life and career — including his fear of being remembered solely for the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. The play opened at the Watermill Theatre, Newbury on 29 January 2026 and, following a sell-out run, transferred to the Park Theatre, London on 20 April. Sir Ian McKellen, interviewed in The Guardian, praised Zeb's "immaculate impersonation" of Guinness; Gyles Brandreth hailed it "a masterly performance"; and theatre critic Lloyd Evans, writing in The Spectator, observed that "Soanes knows how to capture Guinness's voice and shy facial mannerisms perfectly."

Writing

Zeb's bestselling debut children's book, Gaspard the Fox — inspired by his encounters with an urban fox — was published in May 2018, illustrated by James Mayhew, and was followed by Gaspard Best in Show (2019). The third adventure, Gaspard's Foxtrot (2021), was conceived as both a book and a narrated concert work, with music composed by Jonathan Dove; it received its world premiere at the Three Choirs Festival, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra subsequently toured the work throughout Scotland, narrated by Zeb, where it was seen by over 130,000 schoolchildren. Zeb and Jonathan Dove collaborated again on Gaspard's Christmas, which premiered at Edinburgh's Usher Hall in December 2022 and has since been performed by the Hallé and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras.

Zeb studied Creative Writing and Drama at UEA and has written for The Times, The Observer, Country Life and The Literary Review. In 2019, St Martin-in-the-Fields commissioned him to rewrite the libretto for Vaughan Williams' 1958 nativity pageant The First Nowell, presented as a charity gala with BBC colleagues Dame Jenni Murray as God and Evan Davis as a Wise Man.

Charity

Zeb is an active patron of Young Sounds UK and the British Association of Performing Arts Medicine. He was appointed the first patron of The Mammal Society in recognition of his cultural rehabilitation of the urban fox through his children's books, offering a more sympathetic portrayal of the UK's favourite mammal than the sly depictions of the past.

He is a longstanding supporter of St Martin-in-the-Fields and its work with homelessness. In 2017 he hosted a gala auction of theatrical portraits of the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company, raising over £100,000. The proceeds from his book Gaspard's Christmas are donated to St Martin-in-the-Fields in perpetuity, inspired by J. M. Barrie's legacy of his Peter Pan royalties to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Community

In October 2025 Zeb was installed as Chancellor of the University of Suffolk, succeeding Dr Helen Pankhurst, great-granddaughter of the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst.

In 2021 he co-led a community project to commission the royal sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley to create a statue of his hometown hero Benjamin Britten for the seafront at Lowestoft, Suffolk. Britten as a Boy, depicting the composer at the age of 14 when his talent was first recognised, was unveiled by Sir John Rutter on 10th November 2025 — a lasting tribute intended to inspire future generations of local children to pursue their own ambitions.

Awards and Honours

In November 2025 Zeb was installed as a Lay Canon at St Edmundsbury Cathedral.

He received the 2025 Betjeman Society Award for his concert performances. Society Chairman Steve Jackson said: "Zeb has brought John Betjeman's words to new audiences and champions Betjeman through his radio programmes and public appearances. Zeb is a true Betjemanian."

In October 2023 he was made an Honorary Doctor of the University of Suffolk in recognition of his ‘outstanding contribution to education, music, media and literature, and his very public endorsement and celebration of Suffolk.’