Rebecca “Beccy” Huxtable (born 12 August) is a British radio producer and former on-air contributor, best known for her work as Assistant Producer and a regular on-air voice on The Scott Mills Show on BBC Radio 1 between 2008 and 2013.
Quick facts
- Born: 12 August, Taunton, Somerset
- Education: Journalism degree, Bournemouth University
- Occupation: Radio producer, on-air contributor
- Employer: BBC
- Known for: The Scott Mills Show, Beccy’s Forte, Beccy’s Classifieds, Becky Cam
- Awards: Funniest Radio Sidekick, Loaded Lafta Awards (2010)
Early life and career beginnings
Huxtable was born in Taunton, Somerset, and attended Crispin School. As a child, she made appearances calling in to BBC Radio 5 — before it was rebranded BBC Radio 5 Live — and by her own account was “a massive geek” who won numerous prizes thanks to easy competition questions; she was invited to the station’s first birthday party at the top of the BT Tower in London. These childhood clips were later played back on air as evidence, in her words, that she had “always wanted to work in radio.”
She began her career with work experience at a local radio station in Somerset, before studying Journalism at Bournemouth University, working for 2CR FM (later rebranded Heart) in her spare time during her degree. After graduating, she worked freelance for Virgin Radio (now Absolute Radio) and briefly as a newsreader, before travelling the world. On returning to the UK, she sent her CV to BBC Radio 1 and was given a few days’ freelance work at Yalding House, the corporation’s former London offices.
Radio 1 career
Joining The Scott Mills Show
Huxtable initially worked at Radio 1 with Sara Cox’s weekend show. She made occasional, informal appearances on The Scott Mills Show before joining permanently, credited on-air as “Beccy off of the office,” filling in as a female voice when needed. In April 2008, she took over from Laura Sayers as the show’s Assistant Producer.
On-air role and character
Although officially a member of the production team, Huxtable quickly became one of the show’s most recognisable voices. Her opinions, habits, mistakes, and daily experiences regularly became material for the programme, and she was comfortable enough with Mills to challenge him, contradict him, and tell him when she thought an idea was terrible. Their on-air relationship was frequently described as affectionate but combative: Mills regularly mocked her choices and embarrassing moments, while she was equally willing to expose his mistakes and puncture his confidence. This dynamic helped give the show the atmosphere of a group of friends talking in an office, rather than a conventional presenter-led format.
Her personal life became a recurring feature of the show, with listeners regularly hearing about her birthdays, holidays, shopping trips, and minor day-to-day mishaps; at the time, she lived outside London in Reading with her boyfriend.
The “Becky” / “Beccy” spelling
Despite her preferred spelling being “Beccy,” the show’s on-screen graphics and associated Becky Cam feature consistently used “Becky.” She later explained this was her own doing: being a naturally shy and private person, she had asked early on to be billed as “Becky” in the hope of keeping a slight distance between her on-air persona and her real identity. The change didn’t achieve what she’d hoped, and by the time she wanted it reversed, she was told it was too costly to update — leaving the spelling permanently inconsistent across the show’s history.
Beccy on her last day on The Scott Mills Show
Signature segments
Beccy’s Forte (also referred to on-air as What’s Beccy’s Forte?) was a recurring feature in which the show attempted to discover a hidden talent. It launched in May 2009, with tug of war initially identified as the only thing Huxtable might be naturally good at; over time, the format tested her at numerous other activities, including beatboxing (with Beardyman), cheerleading, mind-reading, tennis, escapology, and interviewing celebrities. The segment’s eventual, lasting answer turned out to be rapping: a feature in its own right, Beccy Raps, in which she performed full raps and song verses, became one of the show’s best-loved recurring bits, drawing a dedicated “#SaveBeccyRaps” listener campaign at one point when its future was uncertain.
Beccy’s Classifieds was a weekly feature in which Huxtable searched online classified advertisements for strange, impractical, or unexpectedly appealing items, which the team would investigate or buy. Its best-remembered purchase was a jar purporting to contain the ghost of former Beatle George Harrison.
Becky Cam, launched in September 2008, placed a live-streamed camera on her office desk, broadcast via the BBC website, allowing listeners to watch her day-to-day work. It returned for Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Swindon in May 2009, with cameras moved to a backstage cabin where visiting celebrities took part. The format later evolved into ScottCam, with cameras placed in Mills’s own house for a week.
Oh What’s Occurring, launched in June 2008, was a guessing game in which Huxtable competed against colleague Chappers to predict the outcome of a scenario posed by Mills.
The prank war with Chappers
A long-running on-air bit grew out of colleague Chappers repeatedly prank-calling Huxtable’s work phone; she retaliated with her own prank calls in return, including one, preserved in the show’s archive, in which she used a studio voice changer to call Chappers in character as the then-England football manager, Fabio Capello. She also developed a signature “robot voice” used in other prank calls, including one in which she posed as the head of MI5 to a listener’s flatmate.
Beccy from Radio 1 with Matt Lucas
Recognition
In January 2010, Huxtable won “Funniest Radio Sidekick” at the Loaded Lafta Awards. A separate running joke on the show centred on a resemblance some listeners noted between her and comedian Matt Lucas, based on a photograph of her alongside Mills and Katy Perry; in March 2009, she appeared in an actual photograph with Lucas after he visited the show with David Walliams.
Departure and health
Huxtable worked with Mills for almost five years before stepping back from the show in January 2013, following a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS). She addressed the diagnosis candidly and at length on air, explaining that MS is often misunderstood — wrongly assumed to affect only older people – and describing it, in her own words, as scarring in part of her brain that can disrupt the messages it sends to the rest of her body, sometimes causing her to fall or her speech to become slurred. She spoke about the unpredictability of the condition, noting that some days she felt entirely well and others not, and about the stigma young people with MS can face, sometimes being mistaken for being drunk.
She explained at the time: “I haven’t been on the show full time for a while. A while ago I got MS which is rubbish… I want to come back to work full time but I can’t do it.” On air, she also addressed the press characterisation of her symptoms directly affecting her signature rapping segment, clarifying with characteristic humour that while it sounded strange out of context, it reflected the real effect occasional slurred speech had on her ability to perform.
Four days after announcing her departure, Huxtable gave her final on-air performance of Beccy Raps: a complete rendition of “Gangnam Style,” performed entirely in Korean from memory, following weeks of rehearsal.
She went on to work behind-the-scenes at Radio 1 and later jobs within the BBC.
Personal life
Huxtable became a mother in 2017.