Stephen Mulhern Rose From Newham to CITV in 1998
Stephen Mulhern was born on April 4, 1977, in Newham, and by 1998 he was on CITV. The route between those two facts runs through a magic-obsessed childhood, a Butlin’s talent show at 16 and a first presenting partnership with Danielle Nicholls.
Born in the borough of Newham, Mulhern grew up in Stratford, East London with his market trader parents and three siblings, Vinny, Christopher and Susie. His late father would, in his own words, “perform a trick rather than a bedtime story,” and that set the tone early for a career built around magic as much as television.
Butlin’s and CITV
At 16, he was scouted at a Butlin’s talent show and went on to become one of Butlin’s Redcoat entertainers. That step matters because it put him in front of live audiences before he ever became a familiar TV face, and it also gave him the performance discipline that later carried into children’s television and mainstream hosting.
By 1998, Mulhern had begun presenting for CITV alongside Danielle Nicholls, and the pair hosted the show until 2001. He has said close friendships followed that period: he has remained close pals with Nicholls and later met Holly Willoughby on CITV, where the two fronted a chaos-filled Saturday morning show.
From CITV to primetime
The late-nineties start was not a one-off credit. Mulhern has since presented Dancing on Ice, Britain’s Got More Talent, Catchphrase and Deal Or No Deal, while also appearing in pantomimes and continuing to perform magic. He has regularly collaborated with Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, including on a new series of Accidental Tourist.
Over £4m in property holdings, according to company filings, shows how far that early TV break has been monetized. For a presenter who began as a Redcoat and moved into children’s television before broadening into mainstream entertainment, the business side of the career now looks as durable as the screen work.
Ant, Declan and Accidental Tourist
Mulhern’s next visible lane is the work he keeps sharing with Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly. He is already tied to a new series of Accidental Tourist, and that keeps him in the same working orbit as two presenters who have helped define Saturday-night television for years.
That arc makes the 1998 CITV start look less like a footnote and more like the launchpad. If you want the shortest explanation of Stephen Mulhern’s staying power, it is this: he learned to host by first learning how to hold an audience, then never stopped doing either.
