When I was twelve my family managed to afford one year for me at a performing arts school in London. While that one year was all I had (far too expensive for any more), I had at least a couple of small TV roles during that time, all of which are now preserved on Youtube:
Scandalous Women
(BBC2, 3rd January 2001)
Brief non-speaking role at 38:45 in the video above. Not much but it was my first aired appearance and a huge deal for me and my family at the time. I got £50 for it - the school might have got a share too.
Tales of Uplift & Moral Improvement - The Boy With No Patience
(BBC Choice, 3rd July 2001) and
Generosity
(17th July 2001)
Two episodes of an obscure series of dark comedies on BBC Choice, both starring Rik Mayall. I was a huge fan of him at the time, and while we didn't share many scenes we briefly met outside of filming but I was too starstruck to talk much. For years there was almost nothing relating to the series online, but since Mayall's death a few websites have appeared at least.
Victoria and Albert
(BBC1, 27th August 2001)
The big one. I'm in the first 4:30 minutes of the above video playing Prince Alfie, sitting next to future Downton Abbey/Doctor Who star Penelope Wilton. The cast list for this was incredible - Diana Rigg, Peter Ustinov, Nigel Hawthorne and more, I met a few of them on and off set but didn't know who most of them were at the time.
This by far is probably the most major thing I've ever done - I was paid about £550 for it (again I'm not sure how much the school got but that was a lot to 12 year old me seventeen years ago!) but by then the term had ended, I knew I wouldn't be going back to the stage school in September, and I sat in my room sulking instead of watching it on TV. I didn't see this or any of the clips posted above until 2010 or later, when they all slowly appeared online.
Not online (thank god) - me in the audience of Deal or No Deal and Golden Balls in 2007. In the former I opened one of the Viewer Competition boxes at the end, which now get cut out of Challenge repeats so that'll never air again.
I at least finally had another telly appearance, if just as boring old me, two years ago during the final of the
2016 Eurovision Song Contest
- I'm the skinny weird bloke in the audience behind Mans and Loreen (at 1:05:23) getting a bit too excited that I'm visible on TV in front of hundreds of millions of viewers.
Something to laugh about with the (future) kids, I suppose...
EDIT: A few more I've remembered - I was a phone-in caller on Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel back in 1999 (taped at the time but long disappeared), in the audience of the US sitcom 'Melissa & Joey' about three years ago (fun to be part of a whooping American audience even though I had no idea what the hell the show was), in the audience of 2016's Top of the Pops Christmas/New Year specials, and, when glancing at Susan Boyle's debut album in HMV Oxford Street in 2009, a TV camera slowly crept up behind me - I disappeared off sharpish when I realised so hopefully it didn't get aired!