OH RICHARD!
HILARIOUS TALES OF THE REAL ‘ALAN PARTRIDGE’ & HIS JUDY
Pulling off the perfect proposal takes courage. For some men, it can be a smooth process, as they whisk their other halves off to romantic locations like Paris or Rome, to get down on one knee with flowers and buckets of champagne.
For others, it can be a slightly awkward moment – rather like when former This Morning host, Richard Madeley, 63, popped the question to his now-wife of 33 years, Judy Finnigan.
Judy – with whom he has children Jack, 33, and Chloe, 32 – revealed recently that, when Richard broached the idea of tying the knot, romance couldn’t have seemed further from his mind.
Discussing the perfect proposal of ‘alpha-female’ Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, to her marketing executive fiancé Tom Bernthal, where everything was jointly preplanned, and ‘tightly scripted’, Judy, 71, reflected on her own underwhelming experience…
‘Around the time when I and my old university friends were getting engaged, I don’t remember any of them pining for a surprise proposal,’ she recalled.
‘I vaguely remember Richard blurting over dinner, a couple of weeks into our relationship, “I suppose we’ll be getting married as soon as we can”.
‘It was a surprise only in that it happened so soon. And there was no kneeling, and no ring at that point, though he did give me a sweet little emerald soon after…’
Clearly not one for the grand romantic gestures, are you, Richard?
Though, coming from the man that many have dubbed the ‘Alan Partridge of daytime TV’, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised…
Recalling the moment himself, Richard – who met Judy in 1982 working at Granada Studios in Liverpool, said: ‘On our third date I said, “We’re going to get married”. I knew we’d get married, because it wasn’t a sordid office affair.’
Well, it was no Disney proposal, particularly as both Richard and Judy got together in circumstances which raised many eyebrows at the time (Richard was still with first wife, Lynda, and Judy with her first husband, David Henshaw).
But Richard couldn’t have been more right. It was the real deal.
Nearly four decades on, despite his many gaffes and her famous ‘Oh Richard!’ sighs, these two are still very much together, and he seems as besotted by ‘me Judy’ as ever.
‘I knew that we’d get married because it wasn’t a sordid office affair’
She’s only just turned 40, but Katherine Kelly – whose big break was stepping on to the Cobbles as Becky McDonald in 2006 – already has an impressive CV. From Corrie to TheNight Manager to MrSelfridge, to GentlemanJack, Katherine – currently starring in ITV thriller, Liar – is a household name.
Asked recently how she’d sum herself up, she responded ‘contrary’, adding, ‘I’m not interested in playing it safe. Failure doesn’t frighten me.’ Well, she certainly wasn’t playing it safe with her
Liar character, DI Karen Denton, who she describes as ‘unemotional’ – the blunt detective who has no problem posing awkward questions to victims in her quest to find the murderer of rapist Andrew Earlham.
Katherine explained, ‘She has an innate ability to leave her emotions at the door… I can’t do that.
I’d make a terrible police officer. I’d make a far better care worker, putting the kettle on and nurturing someone. A lot of characters I play can be far away from me, but I enjoy working out how to get there.’
Her most important role to date is perhaps as mum to her daughters, Orla, six and Rose, two, with her digital analyst hubby, Ryan Clark. And she’s tried to give her girls the same free, idyllic upbringing she enjoyed in South Yorkshire.
‘I had a rural childhood with no other kids around, so my brothers were my best friends,’ she explained. ‘ We would go around in my mum’s high heels for half an hour, then play football. I simply didn’t grow up with gender stereotypes… and I want that for my daughters. If I had sons, I’d be the exactly the same.’
Indeed, her roots have kept her feet firmly on the ground, she says: ‘Where I come from, people tell you if you’re rubbish!’
Though we doubt this chameleon of an actress has ever had any such criticism levelled at her, in Yorkshire or anywhere else…
‘Where I’m from, people tell you if you’re rubbish!’