James O'Brien on being adopted and why he hasn't met his birth mum: 'So much of life is luck'

James O’Brien is adamant he has never felt compelled to track down his birth mother. 

“Listen, if you’re sceptical you’re in good company,” the broadcaster says, batting off my questions about whether he ever wanted to find the Irish woman who gave him up for adoption as a teenager in 1972. “My therapist spent ages not believing that I didn’t have any impulses whatsoever to discover my biological family.”

O’Brien, who is best known for his takedowns of politicians on his LBC radio show, was adopted at 28 days old by his mother Joan and father Jim, whom he calls the “best mum and dad in the world”. He and his sister always knew they were adopted, so they never had a “moment of revelation” experienced by others who find out later in life.

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But that’s not to say that he has never thought about his birth mother, who fell pregnant with him when she was 15. He worried at times that she “might have been ostracised or suffered some sort of social repercussions for the shame from the Catholic Church and the world”.

Between 1949 and 1976, around 500,000 babies were adopted in England and Wales, and it is believed that the majority were born to unmarried mothers, thousands of whom were from Ireland, because of the taboo around giving birth out of wedlock that existed at the time.

O’Brien discovered a box full of documents in his parents’ attic when he was applying for a passport in the aftermath of Brexit, and he realised it would be “very easy” to track down his biological family. His grandmother’s maiden name was rare, and he quickly discovered her funeral notice online and connected her to others in his biological family.

“After digging out those documents, I established that [my birth mother] had a very full and happy life in Ireland. She was still very close to her family, still in the village she grew up in. So that was nice. I was very reassured,” O’Brien says. But beyond that, he did not feel the need to meet her, although he appreciates that is rare.

He has friends who have searched for their birth families, including comedian Dara Ó Briain who recently told his story in a show. 

“But it never ignited anything in me, more than curiosity, and a consciousness that you could end up being a hand grenade in somebody else’s life. They might be married to someone who knows nothing about you. They might have children who have no idea. It seemed to me potentially quite hazardous just to wade in there with a big reveal,” O’Brien says.

Still, being adopted is an important part of his identity. It has shaped the person he is today. 

“In terms of my politics and the things I try to bring to my work, I’m always conscious of the unadopted me,” O’Brien says. “So much of life is luck. And I was incredibly lucky to be adopted by the best mum and dad in the world. 

“Of course, things could have gone very differently, which means I’ve always been aware of not taking things for granted, and being conscious that people who end up in unhappy situations have not necessarily ended up there through any fault of their own.”

It is because of this that James O’Brien throws his support behind children’s charity Coram, which has helped build families through adoption for more than 50 years, whenever he can. He recently hosted a panel event for Big Adoption Day hosted by Coram, in a room of families and their adopted children, alongside experts.

The event was hosted at the National Theatre, which is staging an adaptation of Ballet Shoes, the 1936 novel about three girls who are adopted by an elderly and absent-minded palaeontologist, who has a habit of disappearing in search of fossils. 

It is a wonderful story about an unconventional family – the three girls are looked after by their young guardian, her childhood nanny, and a host of lodgers, and despite their limited means they do everything they can to achieve their big dreams of making history on the stage, screen and through flying aeroplanes… 

Adoption “makes you ordinary and extraordinary”, O’Brien says as he speaks about Ballet Shoes. “You have a sense that everybody is fascinated by it, but it’s the only normal you know. The nature of the story is that adoption isn’t really relevant to the achievements of the girls, but it’s hugely relevant to who they are.”

O’Brien is not sure where his life would have gone had he not been adopted. His parents had wanted to give him the best opportunities in life and he was sent to private school (where he admits he had a mixed experience ultimately leading to him being expelled). 

He followed in his father’s footsteps in becoming a journalist – Jim O’Brien had worked at the Daily Telegraph. “I suppose when I was a kid, I just wanted to be like my dad when I grew up,” O’Brien says.

“I wasn’t a very good newspaper journalist, sadly. I thought I would be, and I was quite good at talking the talk, if not walking the walk, so I rose through the ranks quite quickly and ended up show business editor [of the Daily Express]. But I couldn’t have sustained it. So when broadcasting came along, it was perfect timing.”

Throughout his career, James O’Brien has got frustrated by the representation of adoption in the media. “It used to drive me nuts when I was on Fleet Street, that the word ‘adopted’ would only appear in news stories when a child got in trouble. It would be ‘the adopted son of famous people has been arrested for drink driving’.

“I would think, why is the word ‘adopted’ in the headline? It’s got absolutely nothing to do with it. I suppose anything that marks you out as different from the herd can cut both ways.”

Representation has gotten better, but it is still rare to see such a positive portrayal of an unconventional family. It’s something that makes Ballet Shoes so special. In 1936, it was revolutionary, and it is a story that still holds strong today – proving that a chosen family can be truly remarkable.

And for the adopted children who get the opportunity to see it, that is a very powerful message. The National Theatre is working with Coram to offer discounted tickets to members of the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies who will reach out to adoptive families across the country to see the show. 

“Under the bonnet, we are more or less identical,” O’Brien says. “We have the same hopes and dreams. It’s just that sometimes people have to go down different routes and follow different paths to get to the places that they want to get to. But I also think for the families spending the day at the National Theatre, it is wonderful to remind them that they are both special and normal at the same time.”

Ballet Shoes runs until 22 February at the National Theatre.

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