From cancelled shows to radio obituaries and being mistaken for his own tribute act! Dave Benson Phillips recalls how falling victim to a cruel death hoax almost derailed his career

For those of us who grew up in the 1990s, he was the definitive face of children’s television.

Affable, cheerful, always irritable and always ready to kill an unfortunate teacher or two, Dave Benson Phillips became a household name thanks to roles at Playhouse Disney, The Fun Song Factory and Get Your Own Back.

It all started at Haven Holidays, where Phillips, now 59, worked as a children’s entertainer before a visiting talent scout invited him for an audition with BBC Manchester.

More than a decade of slapstick success was to follow, but it almost ended in the unlikeliest of places when his wife Emma answered a panicked call at their family home in Worthing, West Sussex.

“There was a wave of celebrity deaths – so-called celebrity deaths,” he told the paper Joanne McNally investigates podcast.

Friendly, cheerful, always irritable and always ready to kill an unfortunate teacher or two, Phillips became a household name in the 1990s

‘To give you an idea, Neil Buchanan, presenter of the show Art Attack, it was reported online that he had died of a heart attack.

“The other one was The Chuckle Brothers, who apparently died in a laughing incident, and then they come to me and say Dave Benson Phillips was killed in a car accident.

‘I suppose in my case, looking back on it, it ended up very wrong – people believed it!’

Reliving the moment he heard about the hoax, he recalled: “I was downstairs cleaning up a dead seagull from the gutters when a long-time friend called the house hoping I was on the line, discovered my wife was there and said to Mrs. Phillips, “Are you OK?”

‘She said “yeah, he’s cleaning out the gutter right now”… and he breathed a huge sigh of relief, and he said they had reported on the news that I had died in a car accident. ‘

Worse would follow when his own mother was sucked into the hoax after clocking into work, completely unaware that false stories about her son’s death were circulating online.

“My mother, my poor mother, she was working as a nurse at the time, and people gave her a wide berth – everyone was a bit strange to her,” he remembers.

“One of them gathered up the courage and said, ‘How can you come and work here when your son is dead?’

Phillips says he became aware of the death hoax after a concerned friend read it online and called him at home to make sure he was alive.

Worse was to follow when his own mother was sucked into the hoax after signing up for her shift as a nurse, unaware that false stories about her son’s death were circulating online.

“Well, at this point she dropped everything and she called, called home and she wouldn’t stop until she heard my voice.”

Phillips revealed that the hoax quickly spiraled out of control, creating a domino effect that had a devastating impact on his career.

Meanwhile, a local radio station in Sussex was planning his obituary.

“It may have been the worst thing that could happen, but by the time I got there it was too late… people believed I was dead,” he said.

“Shows I was supposed to be a part of got canceled, or they found other people to do the shows. It got really hard.

“In my local town they were two minutes away from doing a radio obituary. The newspaper also got in touch. That was really weird, when I said don’t print the obituary, because this is me.’

Phillips, a devoted children’s entertainer with a penchant for slapstick jokes, admitted his biggest annoyance was when a planned national tour was nearly derailed by cruel con artists.

“It was 25 dates and the whole thing got canceled because someone claiming to be my agent told all the theaters that because I had passed away they could give up the dates.”

Phillips, a devoted children’s entertainer with a penchant for slapstick jokes, admitted his biggest annoyance was seeing a meticulously planned national tour nearly derailed by cruel con artists.

He said, “I love performing for kids and my wife and I put this show together with a lot of songs and interaction and stuff.

“It was 25 dates and the whole thing got canceled because someone claiming to be my agent told all the theaters that because I had passed away they could give up the dates.”

Despite plowing ahead, the spectators were still convinced that Phillips was dead and buried.

“There was one date where I showed up and people were worried because they didn’t think it was me and thought I was a tribute,” he recalls. ‘It made it difficult for me to find work.’

However, Phillips remains eternally grateful for his time in children’s television, especially Get Your Own Back, a show he hosted from 1994 to 2004.

“People still recognize me, even now,” he said. The series took off because kids from school would run to watch stuff like this.

“The next day they would talk about it at school; “Did you see what Dave did to that teacher? How hilarious!”

Phillips has since appeared on shows such as Celebrity MasterChef (pictured in 2023)