Sitcom explores Richardsons’ marriage – warts and all
Meet The Richardsons was not meant to be an embellished idea of marriage – but a warts and all look at it. Gemma Dunn speaks to Jon Richardson and Lucy Beaumont.
EVER WONDERED what really goes on behind closed doors when it comes to celebrity couples? Well, now’s your chance to find out. Kind of.
Starring Jon Richardson and Lucy Beaumont, Meet The Richardsons written by Lucy, 36, and Car Share’s Tim Reid - offers a fictional window into the funny and frustrated marriage of the comic couple.
Airing on Gold, the six-part sitcom sees the duo play exaggerated versions of themselves as viewers get a glimpse into their home and work lives, surrounded by their famous friends (Bernie Clifton, Alan Carr and Jonathan Ross star, to name a few) and their Hebden Bridge neighbours.
“Fundamentally, it’s about being under the same roof as someone you love, but who irritates you on a daily basis,” explains Jon, 37. “That’s universal. It’s just two people winding each other up.”
The show came about after the couple featured on Channel 4’s Married to a Celebrity. “We were basically arguing on TV and found it quite cathartic,” says Hull-born Lucy. “Then Lee Hupfield (the producer) thought it could work as a sitcom and he was so enthusiastic, we trusted him that we could make it work.”
“I think he could see the backstory,” Jon chips in, “the same as in Seinfeld, you see their lives and how it informs their stage act. This is that, but our couch scenes are a nugget of an argument and all the rest of it is how real life plays out from that.”
The show’s story lines were drawn from the couple’s experiences, some almost verbatim. Featuring a third birthday party for their daughter Elsie, caravan holidays and Jon’s constant refusal to do or go to anything, the couple say the sitcom is true to their lives. “Some of the story lines have been heightened for entertainment, but it’s always real,” Lucy explains. “It’s a bit like The Only Way Is Essex. Jon’s saying Seinfeld and I’m thinking, ‘It’s not, it’s The Only Way Is Essex’.
Jon disagrees but his wife is adamant. “It’s exactly the same thing that they do, and there’s nothing wrong with saying that. People love it. And they all own beauty salons now, so we’re going to be all right. You’re going to be selling false eyelashes,” she jokes.
When the cameras invaded their home, Lucy says she played up to being more of an aggressor, “going hammer and tongs and putting Jon in awkward situations”.
Young Elsie wasn’t fazed by the filming. “She’s just at an age where she can’t really remember what went before, so she doesn’t understand why people have stopped filming every minute of our lives,” Jon says. “She keeps asking when the crew are coming back. She kept asking to be in scenes.”
“We didn’t want her in it a lot,” Lucy adds. “She was too good. We don’t want her to be the next Shirley Temple. We do need to be careful about how much we expose her.”
Despite the duo both being comedians, Lucy says its rare she makes her husband laugh. “He laughs at me more than with me,” she says. “It’s more like, ‘That was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen’.”
“I think we’re quite relaxed around each other when we’re on our own,” Jon muses, “but when we have guests, we both click into gig mode and work as a double act. I become a heightened version of me and you become a heightened version of you, and we could both do with being heightened, let’s be honest.”
As for filming the show, “I think, if anything, it phased the marriage out by increasing the workload,” he says, “and that’s the way we should do it. A few more series of this and then separate houses with an adjoining door. It’s basically where we are now. I’m mostly in the pub, in the garage, and you’re in our house, and then we meet up for a shoot.”
Meet The Richardsons launches on Dave on Thursday, February 27.
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