Early Career
His radio career began in hospital radio in Ormskirk. His first job was at Red Rose Radio (now Rock FM) in Preston in 1987, where even then he used to occasionally read the weather in the voice of Frank Bruno. He did voice-over work then was catapulted to prominence with Spitting Image, where he voiced around forty characters, including John Major, the then Prime Minister.
For around four years in the late 1980s, he was a DJ on the commercial radio station Viking FM, based in Hull, and also had a breakfast show on Pennine Radio (now The Pulse of West Yorkshire) and Radio Wave in Blackpool. It was a receptionist at Viking FM who persuaded Culshaw he should go onstage with his impressions and make it his living. He later appeared on BBC Radio 2's It's Been a Bad Week, appeared as a guest on the BBC2 Star Trek Night Quiz in August 1996, and was also a regular guest on the Chris Moyles afternoon show on BBC Radio 1 from 1998–2002, where he would phone up commercial organisations such as a Kwik-Fit garage in the voice of Patrick Moore or Obi-Wan Kenobi, politely requesting whether they could service his X-wing fighter, and how much time it would take.
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