Natalie Wheen


Natalie Wheen is an English writer and radio presenter, having broadcast on the BBC and on Classic FM.
Wheen, born in Shanghai, was a presenter of BBC Radio 4's arts programme Kaleidoscope and Radio 3's evening sequence Mainly for Pleasure. Quentin Letts described her as "the combative Natalie Wheen, one of the BBC's best-known voices." She broadcast on Classic FM between 1999 and 2012. On her debut there, The Guardian described her as "someone with a compendious knowledge of classical music, allied to a camp irreverence.... Wheen's tongue is famously withering... With her rattling pace and deep, warm voice, this is a clever appointment." One Sunday Times journalist described her as "breathy and bubbly"; another described her as "posher than a dowager duchess", and considered her axing "inexplicable".
In 1994, Wheen was one of thirty-five members of the UK arts scene who signed a letter calling for the resignation of art critic Brian Sewell. Sewell responded by placing on the cover of his book The Reviews That Caused The Rumpus: And Other Pieces a version of the painting The Nightmare, in which he himself was shown sitting naked on a sleeping woman. He stated that he hoped "everyone will interpret the woman who has fainted clean away as Natalie Wheen."
Wheen was nominated for a Sony Award in 2000 and 2004.
She was placed third in a poll of "most attractive radio voices" by readers of the Radio Times magazine in 2002.
Wheen now co-owns an olive oil business along with artist Deborah MacMillan, widow of choreographer Kenneth MacMillan.