The presenter reveals his surprise contestant and how Richard Osman ‘bullied’ him into writing his debut novel.
He hosts the BBC One quiz show Pointless every weekday, has a radio show on Classic FM six days a week, guest presents Have I Got News for You, and is a devoted father to four sons.
Now, on top of that, Alexander Armstrong has also written his first ever novel.
So, how has he found the time? His secret weapon, it seems, is his super-organised wife, Hannah Bronwen Snow, who presides over his potentially chaotic life.
"She keeps me grounded and makes sure every part of our family works like clockwork," he enthuses. "Our marriage is heaven. I love it."
After 21 years of marriage, Alexander, 54, seems blissfully content, describing his wife as "enormously good fun".
"She is by far the funniest person I know, and I hang out with comedians," he jokes. "She is an amazing mother, and she has made my life make much more sense than it otherwise would have done. It’s a ramshackle existence doing what I do. There are very few things in it that have a firm floor. There are moving parts and I’m lucky to have someone as brilliant and level-headed as she is."
The couple live in Oxford with their sons, Rex, 17, Patrick, 15, Edward, 14, and Henry, nine, and their Norfolk Terriers, Dottie and Haggis. They met through mutual friends in 2002 at a polo match.
At the time, Hannah – sister of journalist Esther Walker, who is married to The Times columnist Giles Coren – was an events organiser. But Alexander (or Xander, as he likes to be called by family and friends) knew straight away that she was the one.
"The boys often ask me to tell them about how I met Mummy and I explain that it wasn’t all fairy tale and romance," he says. "When you fall in love with a person and you know it’s the person you have to marry, it’s like you are carrying this Ming vase across a shiny floor without dropping it. I had that image of the vase smashing and I was thinking, You must not cock this up. If you cock this up, that’s it. You will never meet someone as brilliant as this again. The onus is on you. And even though you start out as being cocksure and thinking, Oh isn’t this marvellous?, you are suddenly humbled. Anyway, we got it over the line."
But Hannah wasn’t the only one to offer Alexander support with his first novel. His close friend since university days and former Pointless co-host Richard Osman was also offered advice, urging him to keep going.
"Richard has been my guru in terms of writing this book," says Alexander. "He’s given me huge encouragement, which is what you need. He bullied me a bit and told me, Just get on with it. Just write."
Is he not a bit worried that he’ll be compared to his friend, given all the success Richard has had with The Thursday Murder Club series?
"I’d be mad thinking I could challenge Richard," he laughs. "I mean, Richard has spent his life being a phenomenon. He has a colossal brain."
Alexander met Richard at Cambridge University, where Alexander studied English and sang in the choir. To begin with they didn’t know each other well.
"In the first couple of years I belonged to a crowd who were really quite obnoxious, loud and immensely entitled," Alexander explains.
"Broadly speaking we were the public-school gang and Richard was in the state-school gang. Then by the time we got to our third year, the divide between everyone had dissolved and we had all become quite good friends. We’d learned to respect each other and each other’s phenomenal qualities."
Such qualities led to Richard creating TV shows, including Pointless, which he co-hosted with Alexander from 2009 until two years ago. He left to concentrate on writing his bestsellers, though he still co-presents the celebrity version and keeps in contact with his close friend.
Before Pointless, Alexander pursued a career in comedy, appearing with his friend Ben Miller in TV sketch show Armstrong & Miller from 1997 to 2001. He has also released three albums and taken part in ITV’s The Masked Singer.
However, few things, it seems, can beat the recent thrill of seeing 36,000 copies of his first ever novel Evenfall: The Golden Linnet being published, and when we meet in London’s Radisson Blu hotel to talk about the book, his enthusiasm is so tangible, he can barely sit still.
"Watching the print run is unbelievably exciting. I still can’t quite believe it’s finally happened," he explains, making boyish ‘fi-yong’ noises to demonstrate how his book whizzed through the printing press. He wrote it for his sons and is proud to say that he has read to one or other of them every night he’s been home since they were born.
"It’s a big part of our routine: bathtime, story, bed," he says. "I’m currently working through Harry Potter books for the third time with our youngest."
It was ten years ago that he started writing a version of Evenfall. "Back then I was keen to write something that was principally funny but was a thriller – something that would make them say, 'Please, please just one more chapter' when I was reading it to them.
"But I was advised by a friend in publishing that for the book to work I’d have to choose either comedy or thriller. So, I put it down and didn’t go back to it until years later and then started again."
Somehow finding time to work on his laptop in the back of a car and on the train from his home in Oxford to various TV and radio studios, Alexander has written a near-400-page adventure.
His protagonist, Sam, thinks he is an ordinary 13-year-old boy, but as he faces deadly foes and undertakes perilous journeys, discovers he is really part of an ancient, secret society that once protected the world.
And the adventures look set to continue for Sam, as Alexander is writing the sequel.
"And yes, we are in advanced chats with a producer in LA about a movie," he reveals, looking pleased with himself.
The son of a village GP, Alexander grew up in an old Northumberland farmhouse beside a beech wood on the edge of the moors. His own childhood was also full of books, which allowed him to step into other worlds.
"It was very important for me to write a story for children to escape into," he says. "But the magic of this book is the magic of the everyday. Magic is about human contact, it’s about the delight of sharing things with other people."
Writing the book has been quite a departure from hosting Pointless for the past 15 years.
"When I first started doing Pointless, I was incredibly shy. I still am. I was very bad at talking to people," Alexander recalls. Yet, despite having welcomed more than 2,000 contestants on to the show, it was away from the TV cameras that Alexander got his most memorable experience of hosting the quiz.
In 2019, he played a game of Pointless with the 36 members of the Sandringham WI in Norfolk, where he had been asked to give a talk and sing. Oh, and he was told the ‘president’ would also be attending.
"I began to put two and two together and realised that the president was the late Queen," he says. "I thought, that will be fun. We’ll play a game of Pointless as I’d heard that Her Majesty was a fan. As I arrived at the village hall, there were men going through brambles and thickets with big sticks to make sure it was safe. And that’s when I thought, 'Oh Lord, it is the Queen'.
"It was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. Like some sort of mad dream. The Queen was her team captain with firm views and called the answer right every time. What amazed me was the power of this lovely person who was very small and had extraordinarily blue eyes. They were dazzling. In repose her face could look a little bit forbidding, and disapproving. And then suddenly when she laughed, it lit up, this mega wattage of warmth came beaming out of her.
Alexander’s own ancestry, which dates back to William The Conqueror, has links to royalty as he was surprised to learn when he took part in BBC TV show Who Do You Think You Are? His 10th great grandfather – Edward Somerset, the second Marquess of Worcester – was a right-hand man to King Charles I and bankrolled his army during the English Civil War
Although Alexander’s family hails from landed gentry there wasn’t anything grand about the farmhouse he lived in as a child with his parents, who are still alive. It was while at home with his brother and sister that he learned to speak with an upper-class voice, which has always given him the image of being ‘posh’.
How does this perception sit with him?
"It annoys me because it’s somebody basically writing a label on you," he says. "There are a number of people who have never gone beyond that, and people make all kinds of assumptions about you. They think you are posh, therefore you are stuck up, therefore you don’t have a sense of humour, therefore they’ve got to be very polite around you. It’s sort of reductive and annoying – there are some people who have never bothered to get to know me."
With that, our interview comes to an end as Alexander has to race back to Oxford to catch up with his life – and hopefully find time to write his second novel.
"I’ve always been a storyteller but I hadn’t realised since I started writing Evenfall how enriching it is to have a creative outlet," he adds. "As one gets into middle age, various anxieties start to crowd in on you. When I started having to set an alarm to get up in the morning for my Classic FM show, I suddenly became really bad at sleeping. Insomnia was a problem. Having a creative outlet has reduced that – it’s been that beneficial to my general mental health.
"Writing your first novel is scary. I am a little bolder now that the book is finally in print and we’ve had lovely feedback. But I’m still feeling terrified!"
For a limited time, enjoy 3 issues of Saga Magazine for just £1. Receive the next 3 print editions delivered direct to your door, plus 3 months’ unlimited access to the Saga Magazine app—perfect for reading on the go.
Don’t miss your chance to experience award-winning content at an exceptional price.
DJ and presenter Jo Whiley on how she's still getting home at 4am and why she thinks Monty Don is as cool as Mick Jagger.
As the BBC One show returns to our screens, we spoke to series four finalists Stephen and Viv to get all the secrets.
The clothing designer says it’s time to embrace thrift and shares his tips on how we can dress well for less.
The mischievous actor reveals how she gets daily job offers and believes it’s what you do that matters, not what you say.
The TV designer on the daily meeting that is the key to living happily with his children and grandchildren.
