Kirsty Wark is recognised as the longest serving presenter of Newsnight, a BBC programme providing coverage of national and international news.

Alongside an extensive career in journalism, the Scottish TV anchor, 68, has also written two novels and been crowned top celebrity baker on the 2013 Great Comic Relief Bake Off.

Wark has interviewed a variety of prominent politicians and cultural figures including former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Australian author Germaine Greer, Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker and The Libertines’ Pete Doherty.

Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition Preview Party 2018 – London
Kirsty Wark started out at BBC Scotland (Matt Crossick/PA)

Wark began her career at the BBC when she was accepted into the broadcaster’s graduate trainee scheme in the 1970s.

She started at BBC Scotland as one of two graduates on a one-year radio research assistant contract and moved to TV after a spell on Radio 4’s The World At One.

She worked as a producer on Reporting Scotland and went on to host the current affairs weekly Seven Days before she joined Newsnight in 1993 as a presenter.

In 2001, she became a regular presenter of Newsnight Review and subsequently The Review Show.

The BBC axed long-running arts programme The Review Show in 2018, which had been on air in different formats for more than 20 years and was also presented by Martha Kearney along with Wark.

Wark has fronted documentaries to do with social media and taboos surrounding the menopause and has also explored the stories around some of Scotland’s most influential female pioneers in the BBC series The Women Who Changed Modern Scotland.

Royal visit to Scotland
Queen Camilla with Kirsty Wark (Wattie Cheung/PA)

Wark currently presents radio programmes The Reunion and Start The Week on BBC Radio Four.

The journalist has won several industry awards, including the British Academy Scotland Awards 2013 special achievement gong for outstanding contribution to broadcasting.

In 2014, Wark was nominated for one of literature’s less popular prizes – the Bad Sex In Fiction Award – for The Legacy Of Elizabeth Pringle.

Her novel lost out to The Age Of Magic by former Booker Prize winner Ben Okri.

The University of St Andrews has also awarded Wark an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt), the highest postdoctoral degree awarded in the fields of arts, humanities and social sciences.