4 1GT Monday October 26 2020 | the times

times

‘R

ichard and Judy”

have, for modern

Britain, long

seemed close to

archetypes of

Mum and Dad,

the ones you so

often see in adverts

and sitcoms: long-suffering, smarter

woman rolling her eyes at her

partner’s embarrassing dad jokes.

This means that a few things happen

when I log on to my video call with

Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan.

First, seeing them squished together

side by side and on a screen, I have the

psychotic sensation that I am being

given a performance of “Richard and

Judy” for one, beamed live to me, in

my bedroom. “I can only apologise,”

Madeley says.

The second is that, while the

presence of Richard and Judy is

instantly, parentally comforting —

and in the relaunch of their Book Club

podcast they are offering just the

escapism many of us crave this

autumn — I had misunderstood

them all this time.

Finnigan was not quite, or not just,

rolling her eyes at Madeley’s runaway

mouth for all that time on live daytime

TV. She was rolling her eyes at the

degree of superficiality intrinsic to

television. Now that she has left our

screens, she is happy. More than

happy, she has reached a level of

evolved calm about the meaning of life

and mortality that radiates from my

personalised screen. I did not expect

to find something so unaffectedly

profound in Finnigan, the same

Finnigan who had to suffer — and

now that I understand her better

I find it more painful to recall —

her bra-exposure malfunction at

a primetime awards show.

Most interviews mention how

Madeley dominates the airspace with

Finnigan as the straight role of the

duo, the reaction shot. Not this time.

Finnigan talks. Does she, at 72, miss

any part of the television career she

gave up after several decades of fame

and paparazzi frenzy?

“I don’t want to be relevant,” says

Finnigan, managing to laugh and be

dead serious. “I like a peaceful inner

life. I appreciate not having to worry

about ratings, the stress of hoping that

each day, each programme works out.

It was fine, but for me now I like

a slow pace inside. I cultivate a

peaceful soul, which sounds a bit

pretentious, but I don’t mean it to be.”

This, Madeley says admiringly,

marks her out from anyone else he has

met in broadcasting. Yet a peaceful

soul clearly means no less fight. When

I ask if they understand how they are

viewed by the British public, Finnigan

replies: “The nation sees us as people

who have been around a hell of a long

time. That’s really what it boils down

to, isn’t it?” And Madeley makes the

point that the professionalism required

by broadcasting can “actually be

a kind of a barrier to really connecting

with the viewer or the listener”.

He got that from Tony Wilson, the

Manchester broadcaster and music

scene catalyst. Wilson, in a moment of

Yoda-like wisdom, told Madeley that

he, Wilson, was comfortable with

being called a wanker “because I am

a wanker and so are you”. This advice,

about not caring so much what people

think, liberated Madeley for the rest of

his life. He is dogged by comparisons

to Alan Partridge, but I think he has

more a punk-like spirit of not giving

a damn, a compelling unpredictability.

In this way they came to a point where

they let their marriage bare itself on

screen. As Madeley says, “we weren’t

putting it on”.

I see that myself. Soon they are

arguing before me, about the Covid

restrictions: he is a lockdown sceptic;

she is not. Then they go at it about

God: she believes in something that he

denies. That one ends in an exchange

The Richard and Judy

Book Club podcast

is available on all

podcast providers

that every long-term couple will know

is steeped in affection. Madeley: “I’ll

come to your funeral.” Finnigan: “Or

maybe I’ll come to yours.” At the end

of these wrangles Madeley will often

collapse his head into Finnigan’s

shoulder in a gesture that’s part

loving, part defeated boxer.

They met when Madeley was

brought in by Granada Television to

make a “thruple” of Finnigan’s on-air

pairing with Wilson. She was a female

pioneer in regional news stations,

where she became a star. Madeley first

heard her voice as she was verbally

“dicing” a sexist colleague at Granada

and was immediately taken. However,

Finnigan soon realised that as

a freelancer, the younger by eight

years, new boy Madeley was making

more money than her.

“I did get quite cross about that,” she

says. “And so we had various meetings

and I went freelance too, and since

then we were paid absolutely exactly

the same, and we still are in anything

that we do. Equal pay is still an issue,

and that to me was always a central

plank of feminism.”

She had twin sons from her first

marriage, and by the time Madeley

and Finnigan were presenting This

Morning on ITV they had two babies,

somehow making it work with four

children, a dawn start and no live-in

childcare. (Those children include

Chloe Madeley, herself now part of

a media couple with her husband, the

rugby player James Haskell.)

Finnigan: “I read loads of articles

these days about couples resenting the

way [domestic chores are] divvied up.

I was never conscious of that.”

Madeley: “I wasn’t some kind of

awful new man, as the phrase was

then, I was just a bloke that worked

with his wife and when we came home

it would never have occurred to me

not to change a nappy or cook dinner.

I’m sure lots of blokes are exactly the

same. I think it’s a bit of a fallacy, these

domestic divisions. I know they exist,

but I think in a lot of marriages they

don’t, and we have one of those.”

They have always had a joint bank

account. “These days wives and

husbands tend not to have one bank

account,” Finnigan says. “I see it in my

own children and their partners, and

I find it really strange.”

Madeley: “The idea of having a

separate bank account for me — ‘That

that’s my money that I’ve earned’ — it

just seems to me to be monstrous.”

After they left news broadcasting,

the balance shifted. He entered a more

feminine professional world, catering

to the female viewers who always

dominated the audience for This

Morning, similar to their audience

when they took the show to Channel 4

in the form of Richard & Judy. This

month marks the tenth anniversary

of their third joint venture, the

Richard & Judy Book Club, which

they run as a stand-alone website and

podcast, and is hugely influential on

book sales.

During that time they have each

written bestselling novels — her two,

him three — plus his memoir, Fathers

& Sons, which set out to understand

the Thomas Hardy-esque family

history that led to his father giving

him violent beatings as a child.

It was their genius to realise in the

Book Club that there was a gaping

hole in our culture to talk about the

most popular books, the ones that

the media largely ignored. This is,

Madeley says, “pure intellectual

snobbery”. In the first episode of the

new series the sports presenter Gabby

Logan enthuses about Gone Girl by

Gillian Flynn.

Their book-reading tally each year

is in triple figures and they agonise

over choices. Most of their novel picks

for this season are by female authors,

I notice, which reflects the market.

Why do women account for

80 per cent of novel sales?

Some

people

can’t let

TV go.

Their

identity is

too rooted

in that

They’ve quit TV, but they have a book club,

a podcast and a double act. Richard, 64,

and Judy, 72, talk to Helen Rumbelow

Him: I’d

come to your

funeral

Her: No, I’ll

come to yours

1986