In brief: Leo Olsson, a 23-year-old former Victoria College student, has been named the 45th presenter of Blue Peter in the show’s 68-year history. The Jersey-raised social media creator, who built a following of nearly 600,000 across TikTok and Instagram, joins the iconic BBC children’s programme next month. Filming for his first episode will partly take place in Jersey.
From the Island to the Blue Peter Garden
It is not every day that a small island of 100,000 people produces a presenter for one of the world’s longest-running television shows, but Jersey has managed exactly that. Leo Olsson, 23, who attended Victoria College, will make his debut on Blue Peter in November, becoming just the 45th person to hold the role in the programme’s 68-year history, the Jersey Evening Post reports.
Olsson describes the experience as “surreal,” which, he freely admits, is what everyone says. He is probably right, but in his case the word earns its keep. His path to the Blue Peter studio was not exactly conventional: no media degree, no drama school, no carefully plotted career ladder. Instead, he built an audience of nearly 600,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram by working through what he calls “the world’s longest bucket list,” a series in which he has so far completed 4,000 skills, feats and challenges. Building surfboards, riding a unicycle, running a marathon and playing a khaen, an instrument that most of us could not pick out of a line-up, are among the items ticked off.
It was his future co-presenter, Shini Muthukrishnan, who spotted his social media work and put his name forward. As Olsson puts it, there was “definitely a certain element of being in the right place at the right time,” though the groundwork he laid over several years suggests luck had a willing accomplice.
Letters to World Leaders and a Degree Left Behind
Olsson’s story has a few detours worth noting. In his final year at Victoria College, he sent 200 letters to world leaders asking for advice, and to his considerable surprise, received responses from presidents and prime ministers ranging from Romania to Gambia. Jacinda Ardern, then Prime Minister of New Zealand, told him to ignore self-doubt and keep going. He took that to heart, achieved three A-stars at A-Level and enrolled to study international relations at the London School of Economics.
University, however, could not hold him. Finding no one who shared his passion for film-making, and concluding that a degree would not advance a career in media, he dropped out, describing the decision as a “pragmatic risk.” He landed work in marketing for a protein cereal brand called Crispy Fantasy, “as you do,” he told the JEP with a laugh. His first video for the brand attracted 3.4 million views, and he never looked back.
His creative hero is American YouTuber Casey Neistat, whose handmade, authentic style Olsson cites as a direct influence. “The most important thing with anything that I do in my own work is just making sure that you feel that personal touch, that you feel it’s handmade, made by a person,” he said.
Skydives, Pom-Poms and a Talking Dog
The route into Blue Peter was, by any measure, eventful. His screen test took place in the Blue Peter garden in Manchester, hours after a ten-hour flight delay left him landing at 3am. Sleep-deprived and jet-lagged, he was asked to make a pom-pom pencil topper alongside a talking dog. He describes it as “quite an overwhelming experience,” which, under the circumstances, seems like an understatement of some restraint.
To earn the Blue Peter badge, a rite of passage for new presenters, Olsson had to complete a challenge on his first day of work: a skydive from 15,000 feet. The badge was presented to him while he was still in the air, parachute deployed, before he had even reached the ground. “It was one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever done and that was day one,” he said.
He has now completed his first week of studio filming. Blue Peter, which relaunched last year, is no longer broadcast live but pre-recorded. His first episode airs in November, and part of the filming will take place in Jersey itself. Olsson says he is “excited to be back on the rock” and bringing the show with him, though he notes his father has yet to warm to the idea of appearing on camera.
Source: Jersey Evening Post
