It has emerged that presenter Chris Evans once lived in a tent in a friend’s garden in Ainsworth while trying to break into broadcasting.
Evans is currently back on TV with his TFI Friday Unplugged.
The stripped-back version of Chris Evans’ freewheeling entertainment show, which ran from 1996 to 2000 and revived in 2015, has been a ratings success in its late-night slot on Channel 4.
The previously overlooked story is revealed in the autobiography Chris Evans: It’s Not What You Think, which recalls the broadcaster spending the summer of 1987 in Ainsworth, near Bolton, while pursuing his ambitions.
Escape to the country in Ainsworth (Image: Keith Rylance)
The book states Evans, then aged 21, hired a video camera to film what became his first ever screen appearance as part of a BBC demo tape.
Michael Gates, whose garden Evans lived in, said: “Summer 1987. Ainsworth, near Bolton, Lancashire. Chris, 21, and living in a tent in our back garden, has hired a video camera for the day and got me to film him in a demo for the BBC.
“It’s the first time he has ever appeared on screen. Listening to his running order in my tiny bedroom at The Old Vicarage, I realise for the first time that he is a genius, but somehow cannot bring myself to tell him.”
The book explains that the homemade audition featured Evans waking up to an alarm clock before speaking directly to camera while driving his white Ford Escort and explaining why he should be on television.
It also reveals the tape was never seen again after it was stolen from the back seat of a car shortly after it had been filmed.
The book later recalled: “Someone nicked it from the back seat of the car.”
The autobiography also reflects on Evans’ determination during the early stages of his career, describing him as someone fascinated by “the big philosophical questions” long before he became a household name.