12 October 2008

Judy Finnigan: 'we're not different after the show'



Judy Finnigan: 'we're not different after the show'


Last Updated: 12:01am BST 21/09/2008
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Judy Finnigan is prone to depression, but she's not an alcoholic. Richard is strangely happy, but not an eccentric.And prised away from her husband, the more introverted half of daytime TV's golden couple is unusually talkative, finds Nigel Farndale

It's not so much what Judy Finnigan does with her calf-length boots that intrigues - she arrives holding them under her arm and only when she sits down does she put them on - it is what she does with her leg. She draws it up, hands cupping the knee in a defensive gesture body language experts would (probably) call 'raising the drawbridge'. The 60-year-old presenter is wearing black trousers, I should add, and a black tailored jacket that frames the diamond cross on her tanned chest.


Judy Finnigan
Judy Finnigan: 'We had been denying our viewers were morons for years; we knew they weren't'

Her eye contact is not great either, but I guess normality for her is looking directly into the lens of a live television camera, as well as being the interviewer rather than the interviewee, so perhaps that is to be expected. Actually we are both finding this experience a little disconcerting because, today, for the first time as far as I can determine, she has agreed to be Judy without Richard.

'It feels odd,' she says. 'We are like Siamese twins. But it's also a refreshing change because when we are together, people always ask us the same question.'

Which is? 'How can you stand spending all day at work with the person you live with at home?'

This is not a permanent arrangement, by the way. They are still working together; indeed, they are moving the teatime Channel 4 show they have been presenting to Watch, a new digital channel on UKTV, which will go out at 8pm - a move that will make life easier for them because part of it will be pre-recorded. But so unusual is it for one of them to be interviewed without the other, even the publicist for the show got confused: she sent me an email saying what time I would be meeting 'Richard and Judy' at the Kennington studio from which they produce their shows.

I have already bumped into Richard Madeley, as it happens, outside in the car park. He is looking tall and lean in jeans, T-shirt and Ray-Bans, and is still in a holiday mood having just got back from France, where they have one of their houses (their others being in Cornwall, Hampstead and Florida). He wandered off clicking his fingers, trying to remember something I had written that amused him.

When they are together, Madeley is the dominant one, fielding most of the questions. Finnigan is more reserved and, as we talk, it occurs to me that the reason she doesn't do interviews on her own is that she has a dark side that her producers and husband like to keep quiet about. First things first, though. How can she stand spending all day at work with the person she lives with at home? She has the decency to laugh. 'OK, well, we've always done it. And we worked together for a year before we lived together, so it feels normal.'

That was for Granada in 1982. She was eight years older than her future husband, and was assigned to take care of him on his first day. Her first words to him were: 'Hello, I'm your mummy' (and to this day that comment still seems oddly charged with meaning). As they were both married at the time, I ask if each was the reason for the other's break-up. 'No, no, I certainly wasn't the reason for the break-up of Richard's first marriage. Mine wasn't doing brilliantly because there wasn't the same passion that Richard and I have for each other. My first husband was away all the time as a documentary maker and I was at home looking after our twin boys. We didn't see enough of each other and drifted apart. I suppose you could say Richard was the final catalyst.'

Does she feel as if she has compromised her marriage by having it on public display? 'It doesn't feel like that. It's hard to explain. We are very much ourselves. We're not different after the show. We don't feel we have compromised our relationship by having it on view.'

Speaking of having things on view… No, I can't. In 2000, Finnegan became a television legend for all the wrong reasons when she appeared live at an award ceremony, unaware that her halterneck dress was gaping open. They were picking up an award at the time and Madeley ad-libbed: 'And if we win next year, she'll show you the other one!' She laughs at the memory of this now and tells me that seeing the funny side of it has prevented it from being a humiliating experience. Her husband often makes her laugh, she adds. Which is another reason why her work doesn't feel like work. 'It feels like we are sitting in a front living-room chatting and joking in the way any normal couple would at home. Viewers think they can spot when we have had a row.'

I ask her to give me some specific examples of the ordinariness of their domestic life. Who has the remote control? 'Oh him. He's lovely, but he's the boss. He definitely has the remote control. Though I sometime fight to get it off him.'

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