Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Cheese and onion can distract the best of us! (with Doon Mackichan)

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Jane and Fi are back from Sheffield and feeling good! They chat the price of wagyu beef, dogs in pushchairs and confusing bin systems.Plus, Fi speaks to actor and comedian Doon Mackichan about her career and memoir 'My Lady Parts'.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was out there yesterday looking at it, and yes, people say, well, it's lovely to have herbs. Yes, it is, but I don't need that much rosemary. No, nobody does. No one does. I'd have to be roasting a leg of lamb 14 times a week. Are you ready, Jane? I've never been more ready.

Is this an emergency podcast? No, it's not. No, okay. A lot of the big girls and boys of podcasting issue emergency podcasts. They do. What do you think would be the reason that you and I had to come in for an emergency podcast? Gosh, that's a really good question. A sponge would have collapsed or something like that.

I didn't put it in the oven for long enough. You've got to know your own oven, as Mary Berry once told me. Yes, very much so. No, we don't have emergencies in our little world, do we? Not really. No. I think if Barbara managed to go through the night without an incident, might feel the need to break the glass in an emergency i was out with a friend

the other week who said that um he had a cat who's recently passed away uh i think was 21 and she had a particular dislike of going to the cattery um when they went away on holiday and what she would do is she would hold fire but she would blame the individual who drove her to the cattery uh and that she'd come back home all would be well for a couple of days she'd be delighted to see them both and then she'd just very quietly go up to the bedroom and have a jolly good whittle on the pillow of the individual who'd driven her to the cattery yeah no they keep it in yeah they they keep it in and then they get their revenge and anyone who says they're dim, no, they're not, are they?

No, not at all. No, they're really not. So you're not alone. Not at all. So anyone who came to Sheffield on Friday night, it was lovely. It was a really properly, properly lovely evening. You were all terrific as an audience. The Reverend Richard Coles was terrific as a guest.

Darling, you were wonderful. Thank you, darling. You were wonderful. The production team were there. That's Eve. Very definitely there. But it was a lovely atmosphere. So that is really the first kind of event we've done as Off Air.

And it was really heartening. So we hope to make our way to some other venues at a suitable time in the future. But honestly, I do. And we both really appreciate people coming out on a Friday night and spending their hard-earned cash listening to us banging on. But Richard was a great guest because he just tells delightful anecdote

and he delivers the self-deprecating punchline brilliantly well. And he's also insightful as well, isn't he? There's, you know, there's a lot to the man. You like him now? I do like him. I do like it. What? No, I do like him. I've always liked him.

So I think he can do that very rare thing of making everybody laugh and then without making the audience feel uncomfortable, he can move into something that's actually, you know, quite distressing and difficult. There were some great questions from the audience about, you know, the fact that gay people still can't marry openly in church, about how he felt when he was with his partner, husband, you know, they called each other that, David. So he was just absolutely brilliant. So we had a really lovely time. We managed to get a cheeky Nando's in at half time and you were tucked up in bed in an airless hotel room at...

I think it was... I did have a bath. I'm guessing it was 20 to 11. My head hit the pillow. Very comfortable sheets. Lovely. Us London girls got home. Eve?

Half one. Yeah, I was about half one. Yep. Anyway. You should have stayed up more. No, it was quite exciting. I haven't been awake past midnight for a very long time. What's it like? It was a bit daunting, actually. Antonia says, seeing you both on Friday night

was really great, if a little strange. It reminded me of meeting colleagues I'd worked with during COVID via online calls and having to reformulate in my head when the very different 3D version appeared. It was definitely a bonus to see you in real life. It was nice to see Rosie and Eve too. I dreamt later I was one of them, but I ended up with the tip of my finger chopped off and falling into a deep puddle between trains. Maybe the puddle was from Barbara. Thanks again for coming up north.

I hadn't been out in ages and I'm so glad I pushed myself and didn't last-minute cancel. Antonia, I really recognise the phrase last minute cancel. I've done that to myself actually and then regretted it but I'm sorry about the dream because actually if you had a lovely night out, that's a very odd and rather

dark dream to have later. It's not quite the happy ending we might all have hoped for. Oh dear. Right, this has been a podcast. This has been an email that's been hanging around and I ought to have mentioned it ages ago.

But it's from Pam Murphy. And actually, weirdly, it says it was addressed to our previous podcast home. But anyway, never mind. It's found its way here. And Pam is an American listener who very kindly has given me some of that bagel stuff that you sprinkle over bagels.

Well, she gave us both a jar, darling. Oh, dear. Did she really? Oh, yes. No, you're quite right. But I just want to say thank you very much. There are many things we have in common, Pam, not least your adolescent crush on Prince Andrew, which actually did come up on Friday night, didn't it? Somebody, I think we had a little reference to.

Shall we gloss over that? Well, I wish we could all gloss over it, but it was a very real thing for about five minutes. So, Pam, thank you for the card as well, and it was very thoughtful to send the bagel stuff. And also, Pam is a huge fan in the America of StoryCorps, which the Listening Project was based on. We bought the licence from StoryCorps

in order to do the Listening Project, and it remains, I think from StoryCorps in order to do the listening project and it remains I think StoryCorps is huge they've got like 75,000 conversations stored in the library of congress it's quite a thing um and uh it's just always lovely to hear somebody mention it because I think it is it pushed the boundaries of oral history in such a good way and we will be, very thankful for that archive and actually the Listening Project archive in years to come. And I'm kind of mentioning that, Jane, because, you know, sometimes we're in the election period now

and you and I are going to talk to an awful lot of politicians. Most of them are very good people. They've gone into politics because they want to make the world a better place. But there is something about the way that they talk, which you aren't going to remember in 100 years' time. The great orators, I'm not sure they're ten a penny in politics at the moment. No. And often it is just the voice of the normal person

that in 200 years' time you're going to want to go back and experience much more so than some of these people. I just put that there. What are you saying that uh american story core you said yes it was it on american radio or was it always a podcast or no so it was set up i mean it's a the radio landscape in america is very different so although story core was played out and probably still is on npr story core is kind of a foundation it was set up by a guy called dave i. And he goes round and in that philanthropic way in America,

StoryCorps is funded by philanthropists and large organisations who want their employees or colleagues or whoever it is, or participants just in the local community to get involved in. So it's done in a very different kind of model. Right, OK. But can people access it from here? Yes. Yeah, okay. So if you're interested,

and presumably they've got conversations from all over America about everything. Oh, yes, and they do amazing ones between veterans and between teachers, and, you know, it is a huge thing. Yeah, well, D-Day, the anniversary of it, is approaching, it's the 6th, isn't it, which I think is Thursday.

And, yeah, it must be Thursday. And it was interesting, I did see my parents at the weekend, and they're 90, as I'm sure Thursday. Yeah, it must be Thursday. And it was interesting. I did see my parents at the weekend, and they're 90, as I'm sure I've mentioned. But it's really interesting. You talk to them, and they were at primary school when that happened, so they don't really remember it. So what's so sad now about D-Day is that the veterans,

the people who actually fought, are really, on the whole, they're real rarities. They really are. They're men who were 18, 19, who are now about 100 or older. And, of course, as I think I heard over the radio, over the course of the weekend on the radio, there are more women veterans around now because they tend to live a bit longer. So at least we're getting the experiences of some of the women

who are part of the effort now. Yeah. Which is good. And let's hope, I'm sure their voices have been recorded. I gather there's an amazing programme on the iPlayer about some of the experiences of people involved in D-Day. So you can seek that out this week. Yeah.

Just before we leave Sheffield, and also I do fully understand that for people who didn't come to Sheffield on Friday night. It's very boring for you, isn't incredibly dull but you missed an incredible event but i just want to say hello to joe who came along to the crucible and says i came with no desire to win a tote bag but got carried away when you were looking for the shortest person in the audience having dwarfism isn't usually something that makes me a winner, so I couldn't resist going for it. But I sensed that Fi was slightly uncomfortable

with the way things turned out and I apologise if I distracted from the humour of being short. Not at all, Jo. Do you know what? I was worried about making you feel uncomfortable, so don't ever worry about making me feel uncomfortable. I just didn't want you to.

But you go on to make some really good points which are worth reading out, so I'm going to although dwarfism is much more in the public domain than it was when i was growing up in the 1950s thanks partly to people like peter dinklage ellie simmons and francesca mills we still have to deal with the reaction of some of the public whenever we venture out people stare take photos without asking permission and make unflattering comments, ridiculously assuming we can't hear what they're saying or are not affected by it. And one thing that sticks out in my memory is a man leading out of the passenger window of a white van

as I was walking along the road, taking a photo and yelling midget at the top of his voice. Interestingly, I'm now a wheelchair user and it's anonymised me to the extent that I no longer have to gird my loins whenever I'm out in public. It's very transformational, but I think it might be better to educate the public rather than advocating for wheelchairs for all dwarves. This has been quite a difficult email to write, so I would really appreciate an acknowledgement if you do get to read it. Well, that's absolutely our pleasure to read it, Joe, and I'm delighted that you did get a tote bag. And absolutely not. I just didn't want you to feel at all uncomfortable in the auditorium. Yeah, lots of love, Jo, and thank you very much indeed for writing the email.

And may your tote bag bring you endless hours of retail pleasure. Yeah, but if it breaks or falls apart, it's not on us. I think Times Radio's got enough on its hands with with certain bits don't leave it leave it move on okay i've left it now um there's quite a lot of reaction to your interview with the lady from loaded so we can get on to some of those in a moment but that whole conversation did and then we had a conversation on the podcast about magazines and it jogged marie's memory and she says in the mid 70s living in the northeast of England, the only way you could find out what was happening in the fashion world

was through magazines like 19 and Honey. I can still remember some iconic photographs with models like Marie Helvin. The word supermodel hadn't really been invented at the time. While I moved to London in 1976, and by pure chance, I was offered a job as a deputy fashion editor on 19 magazine. I just couldn't believe it. It was one of the happiest days of my life although utterly terrifying as I had no qualifications, I'd never been to art college and I had a geordie accent which often made things quite tricky. Phrases like away man didn't really

travel well and I often had to repeat things many times to be understood. A couple of months after starting the job I was sent off to petty France to get a passport. We were off to Peru on a fashion trip. Up to this point I'd never needed one as the most exotic place I'd ever been to was Torquay. Every Friday afternoon, I love this, the staff would gather in the art department to share a few bottles of bull's blood do you remember that? I don't to say it was full-bodied

would not be an understatement to share a few bottles of bull's blood and some fancy hams and cheeses from a deli in Soho I'd left an office job in the northeast where a woman came round with a tea trolley selling rock buns it was just so exotic and I felt naive and nervous it was so different to the world I grew

up in but so exciting and I loved every minute of it uh Marie that's lovely and I don't you don't say whether you've continued your involvement with magazines or the media but I'd love to know what's happened to you since but But how fabulous to be really young and to get a job like that. Just, would you like to be the deputy fashion editor on a magazine? I mean, it must have been completely heavenly. And let us know what cheeses you had.

We got the Bull's Blood, but I want to know what kind of cheese. Yeah. You don't remember Bull's Blood at all? No, I don't. What was it? It was, I think it was an incredibly bloody looking red wine with

which just about knocked you knocked your socks off okay was it an early screw top uh i think it now that's a good question was it a screw top i don't think it was because you really couldn't get wine with a screw top before i'd say about But if you did, it was an absolute sign of it being rank. You know what you've just done? You've made me ponder, and it's been annoying me the last couple of weeks. You know when you now unscrew the cap of a plastic bottle of water, it doesn't come off fully?

No. Is that a new thing? Well, if it is, would it be to do with it not ending up in the wrong recycling thing? I don't know. So it all stays together. There seems to be a new rule that applies now to plastic bottles. And this all coincides. I've already had an email this afternoon from my local residence group

about the arrival of our new bins. Council is providing new bins. Oh, don't get me started on bins. We're kidding. I mean, my household could end up with four different bins yes welcome to our world well yeah i didn't know that this was coming i i really didn't know and the residence group is up in arms and there's the potential for a meeting so yeah i'll keep you all up to date with that well we've had to label our garden waste and subscribe in order to get rid of it.

And now there's quite a lot of sharing going on in the street, but that's going to end in tragedy. I mean, if I've offered a third to Stephen at number 31... Do you really think that's enough? And he takes a half. Yeah, well, there we are. What will I do with the woody rosemary bush,

which I know you suffer from as well? Oh my God, what is it about those rosemary bushes? I was out there yesterday looking at it. And yes, people say, well, it's lovely to have herbs. Yes, it is. But I don't need that much rosemary. No, nobody does. No one does.

I'd have to be roasting a leg of lamb 14 times a week. Our next door neighbour's got a bay tree that's about 20 foot tall. I mean, there just aren't enough roasts in the world to get through that either. If anybody does want some of my rosemary, I would be prepared to bunch up and send off. Okay, well that's a thought for Christmas, isn't it everybody? Here comes Jenny. So quite a

lot of you, as Jane has mentioned, really were spitting feathers actually at Denny Levy, who is the new editor of the new version of Loaded magazine. Not because she was an unpleasant person at all, just because a lot of people found her answers very frustrating. Jenny says,

every comment had something both distressing and jaw-droppingly naive in it. The gender stereotypes made me laugh out loud. Men shouldn't read women's mags. On the contrary, perhaps picking one up might help them expand their world view. Real issues affecting men were glaringly obvious in their absence. What of suicide, violence, alcohol abuse, loneliness,

lack of social outfits that don't revolve around sport? Porn was mentioned, but it seemed that Danny would have us believe that all men need is to read an article about the Crisp Olympics in order to turn away from it. That did make me laugh out loud me laugh well cheese and onion can distract even the best of us can't it at first i was frustrated that these ideas were given a platform on your podcast but on reflection i'm glad to have been taken out of my echo chamber albeit briefly but i'm left feeling worried about the people who agree with danny and her statement that we should let men be men. Well, thank you for that, Jenny. And I'm just going to leave that there as an example

of nearly every email on the topic that came in about Loaded Magazine reflected exactly that viewpoint. But I'm really glad that you said that it annoyed you, but you stuck with it because, I mean, it just is important, isn't it, to understand what so many other people think. And I think, you know, as we covered in the interview, you're in danger of just sounding po-faced and pompous when you're trying to challenge something like Loaded magazine

and maybe sometimes, and I'm obviously taking this on myself, you do just have to step back and go, well, what is it that somebody's really enjoying about that? And can I find the enjoyment in it too? I mean, the answer's no. If you start reading Loaded, I'll be a little surprised. But I mean, there are, I suppose it's the same thing, really, as attempting to understand why Donald Trump appeals to millions of people.

It's hard for us to understand. But clearly, we can't just, oh, rise above it and decide not to engage. We have to try to find out. We do. Actually, just one final sentence, because people have been very funny about this. This one comes from Katrina, who says, I am just disappointed that this guest

was brought onto the pod at all. I love a diverse and interesting take as much as the next listener. But what I don't need is to spend a single second worrying about all the poor men who just want to compliment a woman's arse in peace

let's just leave that there let men be free to shout nice arse from the without somebody like you or me coming along

a humourless old hag tutting yeah exactly okay oh dear right Christine says dear Jane and Fee my friend Julie A humourless old hag. Tutting. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Oh, dear. Right.

Christine says, Dear Jane and Fee, my friend Julie, recommended your podcast. Unfortunately, I think this is a plea for a tote bag. Unfortunately, she's broken both wrists playing paddle tennis. That's very unfortunate. That must be so painful. Well, it must be excruciating.

But I don't understand this bit. Christine says the positive is she can still attend to her own personal care. How? I don't know. I suppose it depends what kind of plaster cast you've got on. Oh, I see. Yeah. It could have been testing on our friendship, says Christine.

Right. I get that perhaps it's not the easiest thing in the world to, well, attend to your friend's toilet, which I think is what we're talking about. Although that's reality. Funnily enough, we were talking about social care on the programme today, weren't we? I don't really know. I've never broken a wrist. I haven't broken anything since I was a child. Don't say that. That's so foolish. No, I know, but I'm just saying. I'm just being honest. I'm just being honest. I can't make up an injury that I haven't had. Maybe you're tempting fate by saying it out loud. Well, I'm very sorry about Christine's friend, anyway, Julie,

and I hope the risks heal. And well played on still being able to attend to your own personal care. Yeah. Excuse me. What injury I did have once was I trapped my fingers in... I knew there'd be something. I trapped my fingers in, what do you call those windows? The sash windows

The sash window was actually my very first radio station And that was my right hand that I trapped Oh my god, that was painful And that was hard because I had to use my left hand For things that I'd never done before Gosh Right, let's move on to Jo Page Who says, I class myself as a semi-new listener as we lost touch when you moved your podcast to its new home.

At a recent get together, my delightful three Suffolk girlfriends. I love the idea that you just might have many different county girlfriends all across the country. Reminded me of your continued existence and we're now reunited. However, what is more significant in my hint of new listenership is that I never knew that you did a serious show. So you know how your plugging works. I now find myself tuning in around three when I can, even abandoning comparable frivolity with the delightful Scott Mills over on Radio 2 halfway through his show to catch you. Well, we've moved, haven't we? Your opportunity to do a plug.

Yes, two till four now on Times Radio, Monday to Thursday. We are following Andrew Neil, which is a genuine thrill for us both. We are acting as the Lady Jam in a Neil Pienaar body. Good Lord. I know, it's just the way, it's one way of phrasing it, isn't it? But I think it was good fun today. It was. way of phrasing it isn't it um but uh and i think we i think it was good fun today and it's really it's really weird that we're i i do feel slightly more energized doing it at a slightly earlier time it's only one hour what is it i don't know i felt very discombobulated i didn't know what time to

go for a swim i didn't know what time to have breakfast i brought my sandwiches in i ate them too early i'm starving now yeah well it was awkward for you, but it will improve as the week goes on. You also had, I know, a major issue about when to have your coffee. It's not that we're in a rut here or we've got habits or anything like that. And on that note, a listener says, it's Hilary, she says, I was amused by the discussion of giving up coffee when it costs four quid. Yeah, this was me last week. The £3.90 coffee has arrived in East West Kensington. giving up coffee when it costs four quid um yeah this is me last week the three pound 90 coffee

has arrived in east west kensington anyway uh says hillary my lovely father was a butcher and he always pronounced that when steak costs 10 shillings a pound people will stop buying it i often think what i often wonder what he'd think of wagyu beef costing upwards of £50. Does it really? Yes, I think it does. I don't think I've ever had it. No, I surely would have remembered if I'd spent 50 quid on a piece of beef. But I wonder whether I would even give up my flat white when it went up to four quid.

Maybe I wouldn't. I should, though, shouldn't I? I think you should, yeah. Go home for a cup of warm water. Yes, or you could finally use the reusable bottle that I bought you in the soda stream and just save the money there and just drink water when I want coffee

no we'll save money don't buy your bottles of water just use the reusable one and then you'll be saving two quid a day what in every day? yeah you could do it this happened many years ago not long after my eldest son had started

school this comes in from claire and it's about hymns my son came home from school one day and asked me what a dance set he was i racked my brains to try and think what he could mean we had no tv at home at this point in his life so it wasn't an advert i thought it was a dance mat that was a popular toy at the time and i described this to him, but no, it wasn't that. This went on for days. Him becoming more frustrated that I didn't have an answer for him. Then one day he said, we sing about the dance settee in assembly.

I'm the lord of the dance settee. Yes. Oh, the bliss of it all making sense, says claire maybe this little story could endear the hymn to you a little more fee and then claire has introduced her sister louise to the podcast and is asking if that counts for a tote well that's exactly what the tote malarkey is meant to do uh so i think that we might be able to definitely put you in the pile to decide at the end of the week. We've got two to put in the pile there. There's the one that I contributed from Christine

about our poor friend Julie with the two broken wrists. If you can beat that, let us know. And just to add that Claire's sister, her son, came home from school singing about a whale in a manger. Right. That's nice. Gosh, poor Mary. That wouldn't have been much fun, would it?

Right. I don't know how big baby whales are, but nevertheless enormous, I would imagine. Oh, I don't know. Jayden Fee, good afternoon. Well, that's very formal, and actually I appreciate it. Just a few bits of, I don't know, just manners around the place.

It always goes appreciated, at least by me. Can I run this past you, says Marie, who's a bit vexed it might not be a thing in london but here in north norfolk the trend is rampant and that is dogs in push chairs now i can tell you it does also happen in london and i do think like you marie it's a tad weird uh marie goes on it was quite a rarity a couple of years ago but recently i would say the chance of seeing a dog in a push chair rather than a child is probably two to one really it's so wrong jane they used to be seen in a regular old style child's buggy not fancy but recently i've noticed the designer stroller has crept in, featuring a hood with a plastic insert window

so the dog can get an all-round view while being pushed along the prom or the side streets of our quaint market town. I often wonder, is it because the dog is bone idle or is there something actually wrong with its legs? On my return journey, oh hang on a second, another trend which I sincerely hope doesn't catch on was really quite disturbing. I'm sorry, I haven't done justice to your email, Marie, and I apologise. A couple boarded the bus I was on carrying a small dog and the dog was wearing a nappy. I couldn't tell whether it was Pampers or Terry Towling. On my return journey, they got back on the bus. They duly napped the dog as they were standing at the bus stop. Well, I can understand that more.

If the dog is poorly and you don't know when it might need to go or is toilet training or whatever they do, then I guess that, but that's OK. But it's a bit odd and dogs in buggies, no. No. No, sorry. So I don't understand it either. No.

And I see them a lot out and about on our dog walks. Okay, so it's definitely not just North Norfolk. No, not at all. No, it's a really big thing. And they tend to be pugs. So I don't know whether pugs just don't have enough stamina to get round a park. Gosh, well, they might not, actually. Because I know there have been stories about pugs and their breathing difficulties,

which is actually just really sad. It is sad, isn't it? Yeah. But I don't understand why you just wouldn't go for a shorter walk. I don't know how long a walk would be enough for a pug. No, neither do I. And humans might want a longer walk, in fairness. So it does look a little bit weird,

but then the kind of, you know, the warm-hearted dog owner side of me just thinks, well, if you're out and about and spending time with your dog, then, I mean, that's nice. I mean mean presumably they're being nice to their dogs yeah oh yes they're well they are being nice they're pushing them around yeah well there's a but yeah i think if i try to put nancy in a buggy i think i'd like to see it maybe we could set that up as a bit of hilarious content i have not got the strength to push Nancy in a buggy. She had such bad wind last night, Jane. I had to build a kind of tent over...

She sleeps at the end of my bed. I had to build a tent over her bottom area. Had she eaten anything in particular? Well, it's very difficult to tell because she's in the house. My teens are at home at the moment because they're revising for their exams. So she's never in the house alone. And when she is alone in the house. My teens are at home at the moment because they're revising for their exams. So she's never in the house alone. And when she is alone in the house, she does chew things. She's eaten the left foot on most of my pairs of shoes,

only ever the left foot. But she's in with the teens, and I suspect there are some plates left around and stuff like that. And I think she had eaten something rather disastrous. But, yeah, I certainly paid for it. By three o'clock in the morning, it actually woke me up. It was so stinky. It was deeply unpleasant.

But I feel much better having told all of you this. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'll be in touch in the middle of the night, if you like, to see how things are tonight. Did you ever finish the Responder TV series? No. You didn't? I've got one more to go. I couldn't do it, Jane, because it was just

too big on all fronts. It's so tense. Did you see the episode where the Martin Freeman character, Chris, just can't get any sleep? No. I just, no.

So everything about it, I think as we discussed it before, was the fact that there was a baby who was being looked after by a dad who had never looked after a baby before.

It was tense. Yeah, it was really tense. One thing that I did watch on the way back from the Marseille was the James Blunt documentary film, which is done by the same guy. I think his name's Chris Atkins, who did the Bross documentary

that was just superb. It's called One Brit Wonder. And if you think that you have an opinion about James Blunt, I'd advise you to watch it because it is really good. There's a bit at the beginning, about 10 minutes in, where I just thought, oh, God, this is just going to be kind of blokes talking about being in the rock world.

It's going to be really dull. But stick with it because also his kind of comeback to people after being bullied by a nation. And he was bullied because he was posh. And you can think lots of things about privilege but I don't I don't think you should assume that it means

that you can have anything and everything thrown at you and it won't upset you and actually his bravery during the Kosovo war is extraordinary so it's really good fun. Yeah I imagine it is. I'm going to try and make time for it in my life. Could you make time for it?

After you finish The Responder, do you think it's got a happy ending? I very much, very, very much doubt it. I just don't want people to think that Liverpool is that bleak. It's not at the moment because it's getting ready for Taylor Swift. And boy, are they getting ready. Blimey. Yeah, there was lots of stuff up already about it. I don't think she arrives until, I think it's the 14th.

But the city is already en fête. Gosh. But I guess you may as well go for it, if it's coming to your manor. If you were going to use your extraordinarily adept, very heavy Liverpudlian accent, how would you be pronouncing Taylor Swift's Ears Tour? Taylor Swift's Ears Tour.

I love it. That's brilliant. Is that good enough? I don't know. What are you saying? Eve, we could go on for hours. And millions want us to. Eve might not, but who cares about her?

She wants to go home. Can I just warn you though, in the interview that's coming up, there are a couple of terms used by Dune about the male body, that if you're listening to this in the company of younger people as an education in erudite broadcasting,

then you might want to spool forward a little bit. It's quite explicit, isn't it? I was a little bit shocked. Oh, gosh. OK. Dune McKeegan is one of this country's leading comic actors and comedians. Smack the Pony, Two Doors Down, Brass Eye, The Day to Day, Dune Your Way on the radio too.

And she's the author of a very funny and revealing memoir called My Lady Parts. She's also really keen to talk about the depiction of violence against women on the TV and about how shows that continually portray women being preyed upon and assaulted, or just there for sexual frisson, are actually hurting all of us. Is it really entertainment? It's where our conversation started when she came in earlier today. You should note that if you've got very little ears,

perhaps you're zooming around on the school run at the moment, you might want to just pop over to something calming like magic and hope that they're playing something by Toto and come back in about 10 minutes time. I asked what part you'd turned down for all of those dark reasons. I did Wire in the blood where i played um a gay woman and so there was a lot of sort of kissing with with my friend lou and i had said no nudity and i'd also said no slab um activity um and i was really pushed to drop the towel during it. So I was really, really pushed. And I was a young girl and it was kind of awful and I didn't. But also my friend hadn't specified no nudity and no slab work.

And I mean, that could be on your CV, couldn't it? It was a great slab inside. I was a great, you know, dead woman in Silent Witness. But she had to have her body, her naked body made up with cuts and bruises. And I remember we were sort of holding hands and we ended up crying thinking, oh, she, I said, you can say no. And she said, well, I can't because I've signed up for this. So after that, I thought, well, I'm never going to do this again. But as I became more aware of how this violence that we watch bleeds into our culture, I became absolutely zero tolerance about anything.

I'm talking about a woman being pulled down the stairs by her hair or punched in the face or kicked, you know, none of that will be in anything that I do, which can rule out a lot of drama. You know, I don't want to just get stuck in comedy for the rest of my life. It's great to do comedy. It's great. I love thrillers, but my finger is always hovering over the button

ready to stop as soon as there's violence. Why do you think it is that violence against women can still be portrayed as entertainment on screen in a time where actually we are becoming so much more sensitive about other areas of life, about people's beliefs, about their sexuality, about their gender preferences, but not about that. How is it possible to sit and have your Merlot and your cheese straw and watch a rape?

That's not OK. People need to really, really think about what they're watching. People say, oh, how can I contribute? I've had men say, what can I do to, you know, help feminism? And you go, stop watching violence against women and girls because it's bled into our culture. you know how can I contribute I've had men say what can I do to you know help feminism and now you go stop watching violence against women and girls because it's bled into our culture we're in an epidemic of violence against women and girls one girl is raped every day in a school it just I mean it just makes me so angry and upset that we don't think that our entertainment has anything to do with our culture, which it does.

So I suppose my small fight is to try and address what we're watching. I've got radical feminist friends who love Game of Thrones. You know, so it's a big argument about what isn't OK. But for me, I just physically, I'm so deflated and exhausted by it all, I won't watch a single bit of violence against women ever on the screen. So the argument for it being there and for it not being disturbing to be there is that fiction is often the way that people deal with stuff that's out there in society. So by watching it as fiction,

we are making ourselves better educated about it. Does that ring true at all to you? I've had directors say that it's really important to show this rape. Really important, really edgy, really challenging. Or one man's challenge is another man's wank, isn't it? You know, it's not okay to be watching really graphic violence and go, well, we need to see this because we need to understand it. I understand about violence against women.

I understand about rape. Someone said, oh, well, why don't you watch, you know, the Jodie Foster film, which is grim and gruelling, hopefully for men to watch as well. I still don't think we need to see it. Can we not learn from the Greeks and have it offstage? You don't see Medea slashing her children to pieces, which she would do now.

She comes in with blood on her hands. Our imaginations are much more fertile. So we're being fed, we're brutalised. And even the BBC, you know, you get to the watershed and suddenly there's something pretty grim on at five past nine. It's everywhere. Yeah. My daughter and I have a little game and it's not really a fun game, but we go across whatever platform we're on. So that's the BBC, ITV, Netflix, Prime, the whole works. And you know, when they give the one line summary of,

you know, what's coming up in every episode. And last one that we did and i won't name which platform it was on we were on the crime genre and in the first line of nine out of ten of the things that we were being offered there was a woman being harmed there was a childhood being lost in the woods there was the you know disastrous and horrendous uh rape and hostage taking of a woman one girl was being hunted through her town i mean it's really it is quite mind-boggling when you start to look at it but then there are so many women involved in those things so it's not always men who are writing that stuff or commissioning it or filming it there are loads of women in the business i'm sure val mcdermid would hate what i'm saying about crime i mean we're obsessed with crime fiction in this country and crime porn, as I call it on TV. So it would be nice to maybe

find some other stories we could tell. There are so many other stories we can tell. But even most of the dramas focus on a detective inspector and her, you know, even Happy Valley. Okay, that was, you know, a marvellous drama, but with a great female actress but I still think that can we look at other things apart from violence against people but mostly against women and there was at the heart of Happy Valley the terrible storyline of a daughter who had taken her own life after being in a relationship of coercive control so that was at the heart of it too would it be any better would it balance it out if we entered a genre where middle-aged men with paunches were finding themselves to be the target of violence

or is that just a really stupid thing to say? I think what would be better would just be to go, why don't we have a year where we don't... I remember there's a writer, a playwright, who'd worked with a load of women at the National on something called Blurred Lines. And after working with all these women and realising how many storylines had involved violence in their careers you know 26 year old girls having been raped twice in their careers he just went I'm never going to write a scene of violence again against women in my life again it

took me to work with these women to see it so maybe let's just have a year off and see whether it's really boring you know, would it be boring? And also, talking about nudity and male paunches, and, you know, you see so many women just arranged naked in the background or being, you know, whatever, brutalised in the background. You never see, you might see a male bottom, but you never see a man's member because men would feel profoundly uncomfortable if that a man was doing a scene completely nude i i asked for a redress of

something i was in where i was a bit shocked when i saw it put together there was a really gratuitous focusing of a woman naked body and i said well maybe we can maybe next week we can have some men they went yeah yeah okay okay because they were a bit like oh dear it's dune you better put up we better redress the balance and then the men turned up and they had i have to say cock socks on so you never saw the front you saw the back because cocks were too expensive eve our producers just noting that point we'll put a beep in there can we not say cock now i don't know what to say penis whatever penis is fine but it's interesting yes so penises are more expensive than lady parts so that's really interesting that shows you

basically what it is what do you mean more expensive they have to be paid more they have to be paid more to show it and also people don't want to watch men don. And also people don't want to watch, men don't want to watch it. It makes them really uncomfortable. Do you think if we just had, do you think if Game of Thrones was just loads of male rape, the young boys would still enjoy it as much? Well, I really hope, really, really, really hope not. You've done so much else in your career as well. And the conversation that we're having came out of a conversation you had at a literary festival

where you were talking about your amazing memoir, My Lady Parts, which is a right cracking read. And in it, I mean, it is definitely to the reader, I think it's quite a hymn to the misogyny that you believe you faced right the way through your career. Do you think that if you were starting out now and you had as successful a career, you would find yourself writing exactly the same book 20, 30 years down the line? Wow, I mean, that's a question I would really hope not.

There are things in place to protect women on set a lot more now intimacy coaches and apps you can press call call it if someone's behaving inappropriately but basically the culture is the same and what you might be filming is a rape scene so unfortunately until we stop um you know i love thrillers but i can't watch any because they always focus on violence against women. So it's difficult when you're a young actress starting out, what's on offer for you? But do you think you'd face the same kind of situations where,

I mean, you detail one of many instances in the book where you're there with your female colleagues and comedians, you've written an incredibly successful sketch show and ricky gervais calls up and says i've got the perfect solution to a problem that's not there it's ricky gervais and he comes along and asks us to be his feed yeah yeah yeah yeah but do you think that that does still happen i'm afraid it does i don't think enough female led um projects are commissioned uh we just don't see we certainly don't see enough older women on screen um we don't we don't have a range of stories so i mean we are seeing more older women on screen for sure but um i suppose my book

is casual misogyny so it's just really quite small things that really deflate you early on and could derail you and make you go, actually, I don't think I want to do this. This is quite uncomfortable. So I think it's that thing of having to be brave and keep going in the face of quite blatant sexism that's still very much around. Do you look back on your career with any sense of regret, look back on your career with any sense of regret either at being quite a firebrand and walking out of things or actually having to put up with quite a lot along the way and feeling bad about doing that regretting what I had to put up with as an actress yes or your own choices in the work that you took or didn't take.

No, I feel very pleased that I've spoken up early on, that I was seen as the, oh, God, here comes Dune with a mouthful of militancy and her children. And her hairy legs. And her hairy legs. No, I don't regret anything. I don't regret speaking out. In fact, it's really important, especially for the next generation to keep flagging up these stories. I did lose a big job because I'd upset a director

in this book. So that's interesting that it still carries on and it still radiates out. I'm sure my agent would really like me to shut up now. Well, tough, because I've got another couple of questions. Single Mother's Question Time, which was a sketch that you did as part of, was that Doon Your Way on the BBC place over the road? Yes. Now, Single Mother's Question Time featured whom?

Well, it featured Princess Diana. Princess Diana was on a radio show. Doon Your Way was a radio show about a pirate radio DJ called Chantal who broadcasted from a portale on Peckham High Street. So Di came in and gave advice to single mothers on estates. What kind of advice did she give? Well, people would say, oh, Di, you know, my husband's a kidney dialysis machine and, you know,

I can't make it, blah, blah. And she'd go, oh, no, well, I just have a stack of Florentines and a bloody good cry. Just advice from Di was really sweet. I suppose it was just like fish out of water, someone who's never been near an estate giving advice to those women. And would you be able to write the same thing someone who's never been near an estate, giving advice to those women. And would you be able to write the same thing about the current Princess of Wales, do you think?

Would BBC Radio 4 put that sketch out? Probably not. I mean, what was great in Jonathan James Moore in the old days is he didn't even, I don't think he even read the script. So when Doon Your Way went out, I had more complaints than any other programme apart from Jeremy Hardy. Well done you.

Yeah. So no, I don't think it probably would have been more curtailed. But we had free reign to cover a range of do what we want, be a bit more anarchic than maybe we're allowed to be now. I'd like to go back and try and find Single Mother's Question Time, but I don't know whether it would even be available on the BBC Sounds. Do you know whether they do still put it out? I think because of what happened to Di, it was probably seen

as insensitive to have that. Well, it definitely would have been in the immediate years after she died, but I think now, actually... Well, I think they should re-release it because it's an absolutely brilliant radio show yeah um and also there's so much affection uh in that type of sketch isn't it it's not totally setting her up it's like actually she was quite wise she was

trapped as well she was trapped in her own little prison uh pretty miserable so she was giving advice to to other women who were trapped and miserable so I'm sure yeah BBC sounds or or maybe you can cross the road and demand that it's re-released I could do your lunch hour I could do that I'm not busy uh final question before you go uh I love the fact that you love cold water swimming can you just explain uh to the uninitiated and one of those is my colleague Jane Garvey who won't go below about 14 degrees why why does it help particularly women oh that's that's a kind of big medical question that I'm not particularly um mental health wise it's a kind of game changer because it's the vagus nerve gets flooded. You get flooded with endorphins.

I mean, you've got to be careful you don't get hypothermia. There are ways to get in. I do run retreats on how to swim in cold water. And it is about the way you breathe and not staying in for too long when you first get in. And once you've had that rush it's pretty addictive so I think we started a group in the pandemic with four of us and it ended up with 124 because people were desperate to mostly women get out the houses see a lot of smiling faces be outside in nature swim look at the sky go home home. Brilliant. Are gift vouchers available? Because

Jane's got a significant birthday coming up and that would absolutely fit the bill. I can give you all the details when we go off air. Lovely. Because we are in the time of an election, Dune, we've decided to ask all of our guests if they'd like to just pull back the tiny curtain and enter Jane and Fee's election booth. So four very simple questions, if that's OK with you. What is your earliest political memory? So I was at Manchester University and myself and all my friends were weeping

when Thatcher got in in 1983. What's the first election you could vote in and did you vote in it? 1983. Okay. What's the biggest issue for you now when you vote? Child poverty. And who are you voting for? Labour, of course.

Didn't even get a chance to say if it's okay for you to say. If it's okay. No, I'm jumping straight in there because I'm so desperate for it to happen. Dune McKeegan. And we're going to ask everybody who comes on the podcast just little election questions at the end. Sometimes we might get into a political discussion. Sometimes we might just leave it at that. A fiery political debate. Just very briefly, your first political memory? Oh, gosh, well, it would be the miners' strike. So I remember watching that on TV and I couldn't quite believe that there was so much violence going on on the news.

I don't think I'd seen that in the UK before. It seemed like a very, very, I mean, it was an angry, frightening time. So that would be my first memory. Yours? Walking home from school when I was about 11 and seeing a newspaper billboard that just said, Wilson resigns. That's how old I am. Yeah, it wasn't in the First World War.

You can hear her crinoline squeaking. We'll do more questions to each other about the polling booth as we progress during this election, just in order to keep it fresh, kids. Oh, we're going to keep it so damn fresh you won't believe it we're like a snappy bag that's really tightly tied up with no bubbles yeah all of that uh right back tomorrow oh actually and our guest tomorrow i think uh the the interview we'll put out tomorrow is with colin toy bean uh who is the brilliant irish author the man who wrote brooklyn there's

now a sequel i'm just about to finish it. I'm really anxious about the possible conclusion of that book. That's called Long Island. And he's with us tomorrow. And just to remind you that book club book number seven is Susie Steiner, Missing Presumed. It's the first in a mini series of books that Susie wrote. And we really hope that you enjoy it we've chosen it because uh it's just got I think one of the most fabulous creations a female detective character who's just so relatable and funny I think it is uh really really brilliant so hopefully you can get on board with that it's

quite an easy read it's not too challenging over your summer holidays. So we'll be delighted to hear your thoughts about it once you get stuck in. That is, that's, that's, that's it, folks. That's it. You did it. Elite listener status for you for getting through another half hour or so of our whimsical ramblings. Otherwise known as the hugely successful podcast

Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. We missed the modesty class. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler, the podcast executive producer. It's a man. It's Henry Tribe. Yeah, he's an executive. Now, if you want even more, and let's face it, who wouldn't, then stick Times Radio on at three o'clock Monday

until Thursday every week, and you can hear our take on the big news stories of the day as well as a genuinely interesting mix of brilliant and entertaining guests on all sorts of subjects. Thank you for bearing with us, and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon.