Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott will read BBC Radio 4’s Shipping Forecast later this month in aid of Comic Relief.

Lord Prescott was offered the role after joking about it on Twitter.

After an interview for Radio 4’s The World Tonight show, he said he might as well stay to do the shipping forecast.

BBC continuity announcer Alice Arnold, who is one of many who read the shipping forecast, spotted his remark and offered him the chance to do it.

He said: ‘It’s a real honour to be given the chance to read it and even better that it’s for Red Nose Day.

‘I’ve always been fascinated by the shipping forecast ever since I was a waiter on the liners.

‘I used to sit in my bunk listening to it on the wireless. It has such a metronomic quality, like the rhythm of the sea. It feels like a poem.’

Prescott’s broadcast will be recorded shortly before its transmission early on March 19 and will coincide with Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day broadcast on BBC One.

He will read the main part of the bulletin, before a Radio 4 announcer takes over the inshore waters and coastal stations reports.

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