Jonny Owen and Vicky McClure: Their Relationship, Wedding & 2026 Update
Jonny Owen and Vicky McClure have quietly become one of British television’s most trusted husband-and-wife pairings — not because they chase headlines, but because everything they do together, from a true-crime documentary to a Saturday morning cookery slot, comes with the same low-key, working-class authenticity that built both their careers separately. Here’s a full, up-to-date look at who they are, how they got together, and what they’re doing in 2026.
Who Are Jonny Owen and Vicky McClure?
Vicky McClure MBE is the Nottingham-born actress best known for playing DI Kate Fleming across seven series of Line of Duty and Lol Jenkins in Shane Meadows’ This Is England franchise. She’s since become a leading name in ITV crime drama through Trigger Point, where she plays bomb disposal officer Lana Washington.
Jonny Owen is a Welsh actor, writer, producer and broadcaster from Merthyr Tydfil. Before turning to film and TV, he fronted the 1990s indie band The Pocket Devils as bassist and lead singer. As a filmmaker, he won a Welsh BAFTA in 2007 for co-producing the documentary The Aberfan Disaster, and later directed Don’t Take Me Home, a documentary following the Wales football team’s run at Euro 2016.
Married since 2023, the pair now split their time between acting, presenting, and running a production company together — which is exactly why “Jonny Owen and Vicky McClure” keeps trending as a search term: they’re rarely doing just one thing at a time.
How Did Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen Meet?
The couple met on the set of the 2013 comedy Svengali, a film Jonny wrote and starred in. Vicky played Shell, the on-screen girlfriend of Jonny’s character — a role that turned into real life almost immediately.
Vicky has described the speed of it herself, telling Elizabeth Day’s How to Fail podcast that they moved in together within a week of meeting and have never lived apart since. Jonny was technically still married when they first connected on set, but the relationship developed after his divorce.
Both have spoken about what made it click so fast. Jonny has pointed to their shared working-class roots — his in Merthyr Tydfil, hers in Nottingham — as something that brought them together naturally, describing the moment he first told Vicky he loved her during an impromptu pub stop on a walk along London’s South Bank. Vicky, for her part, has said the foundation of their relationship is total honesty: “There’s never anything unspoken between us. Being upfront with each other is really important to me and I feel totally safe with Jonny.”
Svengali itself premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and picked up a Michael Powell Award nomination for Best British Feature — not a bad footnote for the film that started a decade-plus relationship.
The Teabag Proposal — How Jonny Actually Popped the Question
Jonny Owen and Vicky McClure’s engagement story is one of the more unusual celebrity proposal tales out there, and it’s Jonny himself who tells it best. Rather than going down the traditional route, he hid the engagement ring in the one place he knew Vicky would find it first thing in the morning — among her teabags, since she’s always the one who makes the first cuppa of the day.
He’d built the moment up in his head, half-expecting Vicky to burst into tears the second she spotted the box. What actually happened was far less dramatic. She picked it up, looked at it, and simply asked, “What’s that?” Jonny had to tell her to open it — and even then, she needed it spelled out for her: “It’s a ring, isn’t it, will you marry me?” Jonny has since joked it was “the biggest anticlimax ever.” Vicky, for the record, said yes anyway — on Christmas morning 2017, over a cup of tea, before the pair moved on to celebratory drinks by half past eight.
Why the Wedding Took Six Years to Happen
What makes the Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen timeline interesting is the long gap between getting engaged and actually tying the knot. They said yes to each other on Christmas Day 2017, but didn’t marry until August 2023.
Vicky addressed the delay candidly during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, admitting the pair simply never got round to organising anything concrete. In her words: “We didn’t get married, but we haven’t even booked it. I’d marry him tomorrow, but we’ve never got around to cementing the plan.” She even joked they’d probably just elope to Gretna Green rather than plan a full wedding.
In the end, life got in the way in a good way — both were busy with overlapping filming schedules, Vicky with Line of Duty and Trigger Point, Jonny with his production work — and the “we’ll get to it eventually” engagement stretched into its sixth year before the Council House ceremony in Nottingham finally happened.
The Wedding Day: 11 August 2023
- The ceremony: After nearly six years engaged, Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen married at the Council House in Nottingham — Vicky’s home city.
- The reception: Held at Metronome in Nottingham, with their first dance soundtracked by Our Dementia Choir, the group Vicky founded, performing “In My Life.”
- The reveal: True to their unpretentious style, the newlyweds announced the marriage themselves — by phoning into a late-night BBC Radio Wales show hosted by Jonny’s daughter, Katie Owen, who’d left the reception early for her shift. “We’ve had the most amazing special day,” they told her. “You’re missing lots of dancing, Katie, but we can do that again.”
Guests included Vicky’s Line of Duty co-stars Adrian Dunbar, Martin Compston and Craig Parkinson, showrunner Jed Mercurio, director Shane Meadows, This Is England actor Thomas Turgoose, and a cluster of football names — Wales manager Rob Page, then-Everton manager Sean Dyche, and presenter Paddy McGuinness. The wedding menu reportedly ran to sausage cobs and Welsh rarebit, with a heavy rotation of Tom Jones on the playlist — a nod to Jonny’s Welsh roots.
Their Family Life
Jonny has one child from his first marriage, daughter Katie Owen, now a DJ and radio presenter with BBC Radio Wales. Vicky and Jonny have no children together and live in Nottingham, having relocated there early in their relationship so Vicky could stay close to her family.
Vicky McClure’s Career: From This Is England to Trigger Point
Vicky’s break came through the Central Junior Television Workshop in Nottingham, a training scheme for young people from working-class backgrounds — a detail that’s shaped a lot of her later advocacy work in the industry. Her credits include:
- This Is England (2006) and its sequels (2010, 2011, 2015) — as Lol Jenkins
- Line of Duty (2012–present) — as DI Kate Fleming
- Broadchurch — as Karen White
- Trigger Point (2022–present) — as EXPO Lana Washington
Beyond acting, she founded Our Dementia Choir in 2019 after her grandmother Iris was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, using music therapy to support people living with dementia. The choir became an official charity two years later and has been the subject of multiple BBC documentaries fronted by Vicky, earning her an MBE for services to drama and charity.
Jonny Owen’s Career: Actor, Producer, Football Man
Jonny’s on-screen credits span Shameless, Murphy’s Law, My Family, Glue and This Is England ’90. Off screen, his production and writing work is arguably just as significant:
- Welsh BAFTA winner for The Aberfan Disaster documentary
- Director of Don’t Take Me Home, covering Wales’s Euro 2016 campaign
- Long-time director of Nottingham Forest Football Club
- Investor in Merthyr Town F.C., the club in his hometown
Build Your Own Films: Their Joint Production Company
Together, Vicky and Jonny run Build Your Own Films, a Nottingham-based production company backed by All3Media. Their debut project was the ITV thriller Without Sin. The company’s mission is to give writers and creatives from working-class backgrounds a genuine shot at telling their own stories authentically. Vicky has been candid about how hard that fight actually is: “We’ve had so many brilliant projects that you’ll never see… if you’re not getting the green light, you can’t make it, and eventually you have to close these projects.” Still, she’s clear about her standards — she won’t produce something she doesn’t believe in, or hand opportunities to people who already have well-established careers.
Day Fever: Their Daytime Dance Events
In 2024, Vicky and Jonny branched into event promotion with Day Fever, a series of daytime dance hall gatherings aimed at the over-30s crowd who want a night out without the late finish. The first event took place at Sheffield’s City Hall, with DJ sets from Jon McClure and Jonny’s daughter, Katie Owen. The concept caught on quickly, expanding to Nottingham and Cardiff, and even inspired an independently promoted spin-off event in Lincoln.
Britain’s Murder Map: Their 2026 Sky History Series
The couple’s biggest joint on-screen project to date is Britain’s Murder Map, which premiered on Sky History on 7 April 2026. It’s a true-crime documentary series that pairs McClure’s investigative presenting style with Owen’s background in history and production, travelling the UK to unpack cases that left a lasting mark on British law and society.
Standout episodes include:
- 10 Rillington Place — examining how Timothy Evans was wrongly hanged for murders committed by his neighbour John Christie. Jonny, who grew up in the same hometown as Evans (Merthyr Tydfil), returned there for the episode, giving it a personal edge beyond a standard case recap.
- Bible John — looking at the 1960s Glasgow manhunt for a serial killer dubbed “Bible John” by the press, and how tabloid coverage shaped the police investigation.
Contributors across the series include Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, historian Dr Fern Riddell, and criminologist Professor David Wilson, alongside relatives of both victims and suspects.
What Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen Are Doing Right Now (September 2026)
The most recent public appearance from the pair is a joint spot on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen, where Vicky and Jonny join host Matt Tebbutt and chefs John Chantarasak and Anna Haugh — a lighter, food-focused outing that gives fans a rare look at their life away from true crime and prestige drama.
Earlier in the year, both were named among the first announced speakers for the Edinburgh TV Festival 2026, appearing “In Conversation” to talk about barriers to entry in the TV industry and how to bring in the next generation of working-class filmmakers and actors.
FAQs
When did Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen get married?
They married on 11 August 2023 at the Council House in Nottingham, with a reception at Metronome.
How did Jonny Owen propose to Vicky McClure?
He hid the engagement ring among her teabags on Christmas morning 2017, knowing she’d be the first to find it while making the day’s first cup of tea.
How long were Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen together before marrying?
They met in 2013 on the set of Svengali, got engaged in December 2017, and married in August 2023 — roughly a decade together before the wedding.
Why did it take so long between the engagement and the wedding?
Both have said they simply never got around to booking anything concrete, with Vicky joking on The Graham Norton Show that they’d probably just elope to Gretna Green.
Do Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen have children together?
No. Jonny has one daughter, Katie Owen, from his first marriage; the couple have no children together.
What is Jonny Owen’s connection to Nottingham Forest?
He serves as a director of the football club, alongside his production and acting work.
What show do Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen host together?
Britain’s Murder Map, a true-crime documentary series on Sky History that premiered in April 2026.
Conclusion
A decade on from a teabag proposal and a mid-reception phone call to the radio, Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen have turned their marriage into something rarer than celebrity romance — a genuine working partnership. Between Build Your Own Films, Day Fever, and now Britain’s Murder Map, they’ve quietly built a shared career on the same honesty that started it all. In 2026, that’s still the story: two people from Merthyr Tydfil and Nottingham, doing it their own way.
