Off Air... with Jane and Fi - God doesn't notice cheese - with Adjoa Andoh

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Why won't Jane leave Fi's olives alone? Why does Fi say magazine like that? And where are have Jane's varifocals gone? They're joined by Bridgerton star Adjoa Andoh, who is directing and starring in a brand new version of Shakespeare's 'Richard III'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Assistant Producer: Kate Lee Times Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

studio calling earth this is monday's affair i'm going to be very formal it's monday march the 6th 2023 and we're still here calling london calling wouldn't have given us much chance of still Monday's Off Air. I'm going to be very formal. It's Monday, March 6th, 2023. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And we're still here. London calling. Some wouldn't have given us much chance of still being here in 2023. I mean, that's all of us. Earth, I mean. But we are here. Just looking at that amazing woman. I'm so chuffed for her. We're putting in a bid for her. Are we? Great. The headline is, Top NASA Job for Britain Who Reach for the Stars.

She is Nicola Fox, 54, grew up in Hitchin in Hertfordshire, now says she has the best job on the planet. She has become NASA's chief scientist. How cool is that? It's amazing. Extremely cool. The only bit, and I think you've highlighted it there, that really made me grimace is the fact that her dad has taken credit for her interest in space

because he bounced her up and down on his knee when she was what nine months old and it was the moon landings her father propped her up in front of the tv in 1969 when she was nine months old yeah okay um and she says he now takes full credit for my interest in space. I'm sure he and she are both joking. Of course, they didn't really land on the moon anyway. You can't fool me. I think Angela Rayner made that joke, didn't she, in Parliament today? Yes, she did.

That's why I remember it was in my head. I did once get into conversation with somebody who I think quite seriously, he actually did go through everything you'd read on the internet about the flag and all the rest of it. The shadows being in the role plays. Oh, my good God. Anyway, they're all out there, those people. They really are. Steer clear. That's my advice. Now, did you have a lovely weekend? I had a very nice weekend and we're not going to dwell on this at all, but we do need to reference it because it would just be odd if we didn't.

We were in a magazine on Sunday. Say magazine again. A magazine. Yes, you pronounce that in the way my mum pronounces sat-nav. Sat-nav. Magazine. How do you say it? Magazine. Mag. Magazine. How do you say it? Magazine.

Mag. Magazine. Okay. I'm going to stick with magazine. And it was the Sunday Times Style magazine where Jane and I did a photo shoot where we were displaying, disporting ourselves in,

what was it described as? Three easy-to- wear wearable outfits. Wearable fashion or something. What we proved was that it's not wearable by everybody. But we certainly wore it. Say what you like about us. At least we kept clothes on. We're not giving this chatting malarkey up for full time modelling.

What that proved more more than anything, is that actually you're quite right. I'm here to tell you that Photoshopping exists and we both had it and we still look like that. No, we didn't have it. That's the point. We didn't have it. And it's also interesting that the clothes are,

they are quite routinely pegged and pinned up at the back and things are tightened. And it's a very, it's an odd world fashion meddling, isn't it? It is. And I think all you can say is that Jane and I did our best and we did look a little bit uncomfortable. We look ridiculous. But then how else were we going to look?

I don't know. I suppose the slightly depressing thing, only slightly depressing, is just how many people kind of went, oh, you are good sports. You're right. That's so damning. It's so, so rude. slightly depressing is just how many people kind of went oh you are good sports you're right that's so damning we know what you really wanted to say but you said you're good sports instead

naff off as the princess royal would have said and please don't worry because i absolutely love the number of people uh who responded by telling us to be very careful about cycling in long dresses well don't you worry we were never ever going to actually make those line bikes go uh not least because nobody on the team was prepared to pay for them so we were just on static bikes in our long dresses the budget looking like something out of the shining uh so our huge thanks to the fashion team who put it together because they in our long dresses. The budget didn't stretch that far. Looking like something out of The Shining. So our huge thanks to the fashion team who put it together because they were all absolutely lovely and it's not on them.

Oh, no. No, we had a lovely time. We didn't want to sashay down a catwalk like it was what we do for a living. And then we'll just draw a line under it, if that's all right, and just move on. Back to words, Jane. I feel safer with words.

Well, I think that's probably no bad thing. Oh, so many lovely emails. Really, really lovely. Jane and Fi at times.radio, especially people who've emailed us just with whatever you want to talk about, not necessarily what we want to talk about. Olivia's been in touch, Jane.

Have you got Olivia's email? That's the Olivia. The Olivia from Brisbane. Okay, bring us up to date. Have you got it there? I haven't. Hang on, I've got it. I sorted it.

Talk amongst yourselves. Do you want to just explain that your reading's a bit bad today? Our big guest today is Adjua Ando, and we'll get to her in a second. She was brilliant, actually. Just one of those really lovely women that you think, oh, I wish she could be a friend of mine, because she was just fabulous. She's an actress, she's a director, she's a producer, she's a judge in the Booker Prize this year as well.

So she's got a proper hinterland and she is about to do a new production of Richard III. She plays Richard III. That opens in April and we talk about that and much more besides in this edition of Off Air. I can't really see because I left my varifocals on the train on Saturday night. I've just found Olivia.

OK, on we go. hi jenna fee i wanted to say a very big thank you to both for reading out my email on monday and a thank you to all the wonderful fellow off-air listeners who resonated with my email i honestly didn't expect anything to come from sending off the mail when i was particularly vulnerable following my friend's wedding but the lovely responses full of practical advice and blessedly free of platitudes was hugely comforting and appreciated. There was something about hearing everyone's responses that made me feel less alone in my loneliness. I am trying to find my person, or as Jane put it, getting off my arse to do so. This made me laugh, Jane, thank you. Not in a

desperate love me kind of way, but by trying my best to actively search for love. I'm on the apps and I'm joining meetup groups for singles and other like-minded people. And importantly, I'm keeping an open mind and heart. And I'll try as many of the other suggestions from fellow listeners as I can too. It takes some courage to put yourself out there and to be vulnerable with your heart.

I'll continue to be optimistic and hope this pan finds her lid. But I also won't let my singleness define me. And I'll remain thankful for all the wonderful things I already have in my life. And to John and Eleanor, your brother sounds like a truly lovely person. Unfortunately, I think a date with me might be disappointing for him as I'm a gay woman. Not to worry. Thank you all so much again, Olivia from Brisbane. Well, Lady O, as you shall forever be known, Jane and I wish you enormous luck on your pan and lid journey. I know the saying, every pan has a lid. Yeah. But the fact remains that I have many,

many pans at home and actually only about three lids. I've got the other way round. You've got lots of lids. Well, we should be married. There we are. I've solved it. Actually, no, I don't think I've got any lids. Now. Too late.

I'm mistaken. I agree with everything Olivia says. It is, I think, really difficult to be honest and vulnerable and put it all out there. And I admire your positivity and keep us posted. And also, you just sound so lovely. I can't believe that somebody else out there with your level of honesty won't find that as your affinity. And then you're just laughing. So we wish wish you the best keep in touch if you want to do keep in touch only if you want to and um it was so lovely of you to share your vulnerability because as you say olivia lots of other people responded you felt better as a result and i

suspect lots of people felt better for hearing your voice and your experiences too so thank you so much for doing that and the very best of luck um let's move on to a listener i'm afraid we are going to have to keep this lady anonymous just making a birthday cake for my friend and listening to wednesday's show in which jane asked for listeners to email in with the gubbins of life and fee said she found toddler packs of raisins triggering this struck a nerve i felt compelled to email to share with you my lowest point in parenting to date i've got two children now they've got quite distinctive names so i'll miss them out they are now age 13 and. When blank was a toddler we were at my sister's house one afternoon. She also had a toddler at the time, my niece, and we both had a day off work and we're

enjoying one of those afternoons just drinking tea, catching up and pretending to eat plastic toy food served to us by the little ones. I was potty training my son at the time with limited success. I'd plonked him on the potty in front of the TV, I think it was actually Chuggington, and as he was permanently hungry he was munching his way through a packet of toddler raisins, which now I come to think of it was quite gross. I nipped into the next door kitchen to speak to my sister and came back a moment or two later to see that he'd got up from the potty, which was empty, and was now trying to change the TV channel. I sorted him out and went to put the potty away in the toilet.

On my return to the lounge, I noticed he'd dropped a raisin onto my sister's carpet, so I picked it up and absentmindedly popped it into my mouth. Also a gross thing to do, now I think about it, but I was very much in that eating the kids' leftovers without thinking about it phase. I soon discovered the raisin was not in fact a raisin and that my son had in fact produced a little something. Much screaming and spitting ensued, it was a little something, much screaming and spitting ensued but my abiding memory of the incident is my sister rushing in from the kitchen like a kind of frenzied superhero and loudly proclaiming don't worry i've got mouthwash i have never been able to give the kids a packet

of sun-made raisins ever since much love and thanks says this anonymous correspondent who has mistaken a raisin for something else entirely but But that was some time ago now, and I'm sure she's more or less well again. We're here to say don't do that. It confirms my knowledge, and it's not a suspicion, it's knowledge that raisins are evil. They just really are. I think they disguise all manner of dreadful things.

Well, I'm going to say we've all done it, and I certainly understand what she means by just eating the toddler's leftovers. Oh, I'm going to say we've all done it and I certainly understand what she means by just eating the toddler's leftovers. Oh, I used to do that all the time. I mean, I also should say that as I'm cooking now, I'm eating as I go along. The first thing I do when I'm preparing a meal is just cut myself a slice of cheese

just because I feel sorry for myself having to cook a meal. Don't you do that? I'm very ill-disciplined. So I did used to do that a lot but I'm trying very hard not to and I've replaced it by having a little bowl of olives by the side. Ewww! Don't you start, Madam, because you've got spare capers in your pantry and I can't clean that. So leave my olives alone. But I do find that I can get through a whole

tin, you know, a quite big tin, and maybe I'd be better off with a chunk of cheese. Well, I don't know. I always just think cheese doesn't count. No. God doesn't notice cheese. Maybe, maybe. We shall get to our fantastic guest.

I just wanted to say a very quick hello to Derek Aldridge, who sent us a very funny email saying, as a scene setter I've listened to you both since Five Live was invented you always look back in the last century. You always make me laugh was it actually? When was it? I know exactly when it was. The 28th of March

1994. Yep. Last century. Five o'clock in the morning. You always make me laugh, think and only occasionally I disagree with you. What? Excuse me. make me laugh think and only occasionally i disagree with you i'm what excuse me call it i'm 48 straight married with three daughters and your perspectives on life have definitely shaped my thinking as a man in a household of four females i program regional theatres for a living and work with vain to bring you to several of them your comments about regional

theatre dressing rooms certainly ring true, but I'm so proud that these buildings continue to bring entertainment to local communities. Well, actually, so are we. Oh, yeah, absolutely agree with that. We've had a really nice time. Some audiences nicer than others, but we always really enjoy being out and about.

But in Oxford, you know where. Good evening, Guildford. Having heard the podcast build up to the photo shoot, I spat out my tea when I realised I put it in the recycling as is normal practice. But anyway, Derek retrieved it and said some very funny things about it. Like what? From pink bicycles, which I feel was a fever dream by a Tomorrow's World presenter of how Call the Midwife would look in 2023,

to the elegant Doctor Who and her stripy shirt assistant accepts flowers following BAFTA win look. He goes on to say you two are never short of brilliant. Your send up of these sorts of fashion shoots is truly comedic gold. Oh that's right it was satire. Yes. Oh my goodness.

That's the thing Derek. No Derek you've spotted. Only Derek actually spotted it for what it was. Thank goodness he is listening and reading the style section of the Sunday Times. Yeah, OK. But also the PS is just so funny. Derek claims to be the creator of the Jane and Fee Straight Male Fan Club. Jane and Fee S&M fans, I've set up a Twitter platform,

but I'm surprised by some of the followers. Right. Just go carefully, Derek. Very nice one, Derek. I hope you continue to listen to us for years to come. I just want to... Don't go off on one, because it is briefly about the Archers,

but it's not really about the Archers. It's about things that are much more significant. Each week, this is Sarah, each week I used to debate and dissect the plot lines with my dearest friend Anna, as well as the podcast Ambridge on the Couch. I believe, Fi, you were once mistaken for Harriet Carmichael from this podcast on your recent skiing trip.

I was. And fortunately, I always listen to that too. Sadly, Anna did not get to hear your transfer to Times Radio because she died suddenly and unexpectedly at just 50. She was a part of me. We shared everything. The depth and power of female friendship is immense. And although I knew we had an incredible friendship since her death, the uniqueness of our 30 plus years has really struck me. How lucky we were to have each other. And the loss I now feel is immense. And with every episode of The Archers,

I think about how much she's missed. The recent episodes of Jennifer's death have been particularly tough for me. Sarah, I'm so sorry to hear about your lovely friend, Anna. And I'm just, I totally get what, well, I haven't lost a friend in those circumstances and so suddenly as well but I totally understand why your link to the

archers is really on your mind so take care of yourself because that's a very, and it's very hard in a way for people who are mourning not a partner or a relative or a child heaven forbid but a friend who dies very suddenly, it's a particular sort of grief,

but people in that situation desperately need support, don't they? Because it's tough, really tough. I think that's such a good point. And I bet that you don't feel that you can take time off work, tap into bereavement counselling in the same way that you might do with somebody you're related to. So I think that's a really good point. And friendship is just such a powerful thing. I mean, it can be more powerful than your family

connections, can't it? Because it's a person you've chosen to connect with. So yeah, deep sympathies. I'm not gonna make any kind of joke about the Archers after that. No. Actually, Sarah does ask, what do I think about how brian will cope with the news of rory's recent employment well if he won't know anything about this sarah but um rory has actually been i think it's called well he he was like a sugar is it sugar boy he was um you do look baffled i don't like where this is going He was basically a sort of paid escort to a lady business person. And the lady business person is... He's a gigolo?

Yes, that's it. Yes. Okay. Yeah, he was a gigolo. And she bought him a really swanky flat in London. A flat in London? What's going on? I thought this was just life in rural

England. No, and Rory's bisexual. And everything. Yes, you see, you don't know, you've got no idea what you're missing. Sarah and I know. Oh, I tell you what, with plot lines like that, I've got not a chance in hell of catching up. You'd have to spend about, you'd have to spend literally 25 years with me

while I painstakingly go through all the backstory of every single major character. Well, it but not that tempting okay I can take it I don't need this after a weekend in which I lost my very focals let's move on swiftly to our guest actor producer and director Adjua Ando uh somebody who rose to prominence as the very formidable Lady Danbury in Bridgerton the Shondaonda Rhimes mega, mega successful Netflix show. But she's done so much more, actually. She's been a colossus in the audio world, a radio drama, reciting audio books.

She's been on Casualty, on Doctor Who, on Law & Order UK. Now she's directing and starring in a new production of Richard III. That's by a chap called William... Shacklesberry. That's it. Set in the West Country, her version of the play reflects on a Joa's own childhood in the Cotswolds back in the 60s and 70s,

often as the only black person in a white environment. So we asked her, why Richard III? When I was a kid, I was given two... I was given a book by my auntie Lois, my mum's younger sister, called The King's Grey Mare by Rosemary Hawley Jarman. The King's Grey Mare is Elizabeth Woodville. Elizabeth Woodville marries Edward IV.

She is Richard III's sister-in-law and she hated Richard. There's a companion book that I found in the school library called We Speak No Treason, which is from the first act of the play Richard III. And that book is the same story as The King's Grey Mare, but all from the perspective of people who love Richard. So King's Grey Mare, they love Elizabeth. We Speak No Treason, they love Richard.

And somewhere in the middle is probably the truth or their truth most people who hadn't read that book and I looked it up this morning it's still around it's still absolutely enchants a chunk of people who can't get enough of it but it was all new to me I knew nothing about it I just think of him as an evil so-and-so who killed those poor boys in the tower that's the PR that worked successfully. So when I first read Shakespeare's play, I was outraged because I'd grown very fond of Richard. I felt, I think because I grew up in the Cotswolds,

Cotswolds in the 60s and early 70s, me, my dad and my brother were the only people of colour for a bajillion miles. So for me, I really identified with Richard. And when I read the play, I was a dweeby kid. I'm reading Shakespeare. I haven't started secondary school yet. I'm getting that vibe from you, actually. Yeah, dweeb.

Major dweeb. I'm thinking we could have been friends. Yes. Thanks. Thanks, V. You know, very bad at sport. Very enthusiastic, but very bad. So swotty, silly voices, that was sort of my forte.

Can we just name the village where you grew up? Because I looked that up too. It's quite obscure. Wickwar. Wickwar near Wooten Under Edge and Chip and Sobree, near Stoloff's Stroud. Our other alumni from the village is a woman called Catherine Johnson who wrote Mamma Mia

there's something in the water there there certainly is and we're still pals we survived our childhood so Richard III for me was a character I identified with on the tip of why are they being mean to him, it's not his fault how he looks

why can't people just see if he's not his fault how he looks why can't people just see if he's a nice person or not that was absolutely my take and I you know um here I am several several decades on and um I think that childish sense of what's fair and not fair um sticks with us at some level so I've always loved this play because when I first read it I was outraged that Shakespeare made him out to be such a meanie and such a bad person. But I also reasoned, well, Shakespeare's writing for Elizabeth I. He's a freelancer. You've got to stay in with your paymaster.

How true that is. Elizabeth I is the granddaughter of the man that deposed Richard III. Of course, the rep is going to be that he was a baddie and hooray for my granddad. Richard III, of course the rep is going to be that he was a baddie and hooray for my grandad. So I love this play because although Shakespeare does do the badness in it, who does he have speaking to the audience? Richard. Richard has lines about, why doesn't anybody love me?

Why doesn't my mother love me? I'm not lovable. Maybe I am lovable. And there's something about a person's sense of themself being sort of swamped and distorted by the judgment of the society around them that can then be internalized. So you start to hate yourself. And that I really resonated with.

And so I wanted to posit the question, what happens when somebody who's been punched down upon for long enough decides to punch up? And that's sort of where the play lies for me. So all of that makes perfect sense when you're explaining that to us now, but how, if you don't change anything in the original version, can you know that you're getting that across to an audience?

Well, that'll be the gig of the production. For me, it's about you lift up and you heighten those elements that you want to resonate with the audience. You make a relationship with the audience. You know, when you're invested in someone, it's harder to hate them and much more easy to try to understand what's happened to them. The way we'll set up and structure early parts of the show

will give you that sense of this character who's been marginalised and othered. And then, frankly, you just let the language do its work. I mean, some of the things people say to him are fairly gobsmacking, not least his mother. You know, two mirrors have gone and there's one cracked mirror left and that's the one i'm left with and you know i should have strangled you at birth i mean there's a whole she she goes for it good good good mothering she has not no what was his disability

um well um in a shape you know he's called a crook he's called crook-backed and a toad and all sorts of things in the show. But he had a very slight scoliosis, they think, something that might not have even been visible to the eye. And one of the things I wanted to talk about is body pathologising, where you decide, oh, this body in our society is the body that we think is unacceptable. So this is the body that we say has malignant, malign intentions ascribed to it. So it might be a black body. It might be a differently abled body.

It might be an albino body. It might be a masculine-presenting female body or a feminine-presenting male. Do you know, pick your poison, anything you like. But it's the same, you can use the same structure of sort of derogatory attitudes and exclusion and that sort of hostile othering. And the conclusions come out the same. So obviously in our production, I'm not playing Richard as a differently abled person.

I'm just being black in an all white society. So, and that's part of why I've bunged it into the Cotswolds. So we're taking a bit of my childhood and my brother's composing the music for it, which is lovely. You are the only person of colour in the cast, the only person we'll see on stage. Yeah. And that, you believe, is a genuine reflection of the Cotswold world in which you grew up.

It was the fact that it was us. It was the three of us. And, you know, loads of things about my childhood were absolutely brilliant. I wouldn't have missed a second of being able to walk for miles through fields or have adventures or get stuck up a tree and have to get myself, you know all of that I can milk cows by hand if called upon to do so um but it also I did have to sort of navigate from the age of four why am I being punched in the head every day I better learn to fight back why am I not allowed in oh she's a lovely girl we can't have that kind of girl in here what would the neighbors say that all of that sort of so you wouldn't get invited for tea exactly I mean you would get to some houses, but then there were other houses

where you'd have to get out before they got in from work, all that sort of stuff. And what do you think would be the experience of that young girl growing up in the Cotswolds now? How much would genuinely have changed? Well, some things will have changed. I mean, you know, think back. Think back to the 60s and 70s telly.

It might be Mind Your language or love thy neighbor, or those would be the times where you'd see a person of colour on or might be Charlie Williams being hilarious. You know, or it might be Jim Davidson with his chalky white jokes and all that sort of stuff. So we don't have that in the same way. Now, you know, that we're more media savvy savvy and everybody's on their phones the world is is wider than it was then but um at some levels i mean we've just had the girl who was beaten up in the playground haven't we the black girl that's been up in the playground and by some of her white uh classmates and nobody intervened so you, it continues in a variety of forms. And so I still think it has, it still has a resonance.

We have, you know, what did we have the other day? People protesting outside the hotel where the migrants were. That was in Liverpool, of course, which is where your mum is from. Your dad was born in Ghana, is that right? My dad's from Ghana, yeah, born and grew up. And your mum's from Liverpool. And this play is going to be premiered at the Playhouse. Liverpool, where I grew up, is not a place without racism. No, well, it's a port city. How would it not be?

Yeah. Yes, Toxteth, Liverpool 8. There was, you know, in the late 70s and early 80s, there was a lot of writing going on up there and all the interface of communities and racism was very powerful then and no doubt there are still elements, well, as we know, yes, as you say just now, there are still elements of that now. But I'm very glad to be opening in liverpool because the other side of my my stepfather said um when he went to spend a week in liverpool with mum they went up there for

a visit after a week he said okay now i understand your mother um in that you know sit next to my mum for five minutes she will have your life story out of you um and there is something sort of open and uh garrulous and embracing about that sort of there's all of that yeah but there's bad stuff too i mean i i'm listen fee knows damn well i'm always here to say good things about liverpool but i'm also acutely aware or i've become more aware as i've got older that it wasn't always a good place for people of color to to have lived but i mean i think you could probably take any part of the country and say the same. I mean, I know that one of the reasons that we moved to the Cotswolds was because my father was working for British Aerospace based in Bristol.

And when he'd first come over in the late 50s to England, he'd gone to stay with a cousin or a friend who lived in Bristol on City Road. And he'd experienced the way children of colour, particularly black children, were educated. And there was a large percentage of kids who were sent to educationally subnormal schools, as they were charmingly called then. And so when the...

Then we moved to Leeds, hence my love of Leeds United Football Club. I have to get that in. But when we moved back, we could have moved back to Bristol, but his sense was I'd quite like my children to be educated somewhere where the assumption wouldn't be that they might probably go to an education subnormal school. You are listening to Off Air with Jayden. Just lost where I was there, sorry.

Couldn't remember the lady's name. You absolute witch. I'll do it. You're listening to Off-Air with Davina and Thee. That's so odd, because Kate doesn't know this, I had an anxiety dream in the early hours of Sunday that Thee had left me for Davina McCall. Isn't that terrible?

I felt really bad, Kate. Our guest is actor and producer, but I'll crack on. Our guest is actor and producer, Adria Ando. We asked her how she found school when she herself didn't realise that she was dyspraxic until her daughter was diagnosed with that at nursery. I thought she was developing perfectly normally, like her mother. That is, she's talking at nine months but not walking till 18

and doing a lot of pulling the rug with a thing on it towards her, which I thought was just, well, that's very smart. She sounds gifted to me. Exactly, thank you. Yes, so, well, what was... The whole thing about the dyspraxia thing was, I mean, if it was identified as anything, it was, oh, she's got Clemsy Child Syndrome. But my uncle played rugby for England at the time, number eight, Andy Ripley. And my mother was my games mistress.

So on the one side, superbly gifted on a sort of coordinated level and on the other side, tripping over her shadow. So, as I say, I was very enthusiastic about sports. I love sports, just not very good. So quite often, you know when you'd get picked for teams, it would be me and the girl with bottle lenses left at the end. We definitely would have been friends. Thanks, thanks. But I suppose what fascinates me about that, though,

is that you've chosen a career that involves being on display, being quite dexterous, having to communicate with your body, move around pieces of furniture on stage. So that just seems quite bold, actually. Well, I didn't I wasn't Jesse wasn't diagnosed with dyspraxia until I was already in the profession. I found, I got my first equity job and found out I was pregnant in the same week. So the die was cast in terms of what I was going to do for a job. But it has meant that, you know, if I'm on a rake stage, I will say no thank you to the heels. I beg you no heels because I will fall over. If I have props, do not give them to me at the last minute. I have

to practice with them so that klaxons can go off and my hands will still do the thing. Because if my brain gets involved in that, it will all go everywhere. And were you operating on pretend people in casualty? I really hope they were pretend. They were kind volunteers. Yes. That's quite funny, isn't it it the scalpel in one hand I was but I was I was a mere sister

so nobody was I was going to give reassuring words and do the red dots you know the dots the traffic light dots for putting on the monitors that was the only thing I could remember for a while

and now it's gone it's gone you were also I remember I need to get the title right the BBC Radio Drama Company yes the RDC the RDC oh sorry Drama Company? Yes, the RDC.

The RDC. Oh, sorry, darling. Yes, the RDC. The RDC. Now, what was that like, that experience? I'm a radio dweeb. Okay. Yes.

My father is, you know, he's an avid World Service listener. So I would wake in the night as a kid and I would hear the World Service coming through the floor. So Radio 4 was the light programme and then Radio 4 were on in every, literally in every room of the house and so I can't start the day without

the wireless on. So I've always listened to everything and the first thing I joined, I did a show called Citizens which was, do you remember Citizens? It was like the Archers in London or the the Accent Show, as we called it. Everybody lived in a shared house, and there was a Geordie, a Scots person, somebody from Welsh Whale.

You know, it was one of those. And I did it for two and a half years, and I was beside my... What kind of a person were you, by the way? I was JJ. I was a bit of a ball breaker. Yes, one of those. You know, you come in dynamic and they don't quite know what to do with you.

That's Radio 4 for you, by the way. Thank you, especially if you're a mighty woman. But interestingly, one of the producers from Citizens is now playing Hastings in our show, Clive Brill. There we are. So, full circle. I love the RDC. When I started on the RDC, I think the first time I was on

it was the late 80s. There was a company of over 30. John Tidyman took you into his office. Red wine was cracked open to celebrate your arrival and you all staggered out at the end of the afternoon. By the time, now I workshop potential

actors going into the RDC and the company company I think it's down to about six or seven so like a lot of things at the BBC they've sort of shrunk. Yeah we were much taller when we joined. Were you? Yes I was five ten. Do you worry at all that artificial intelligence and the development of technology might actually take quite a large proportion of acting work away from people. Because it suddenly strikes me that you could now form a whole play, couldn't you, out of just using some examples of your voice. You would be able to turn that into future dialogue, wouldn't you? You could, but and I'm sure i'm sure they will um but i i think there's something about the um the vibration bouncing back and forth between

people in a room um that is qualitatively different you know like i'm really glad to be in a studio talking to you two when we can all look at each other and we're all actually responding to each other because we're in the same space and it's and it's different when it's mediated you know through a screen or or at a distance and i do think that's the case you know with a radio play of course you know your cues and you rehearse it but there is something that's very in the moment and of the moment that is a human resonance. And I think humans pick it up when they listen to it. People will be asking, why haven't they asked her about Bridgerton?

So we're going to do it now. Go on then. I had not been aware of the books, I must admit. So I came to the show. Had you heard? Because you're a Booker Prize judge. I'm a judge this year, yeah. So books are your thing.

Yes. Very much so. You're a great narrator of books, aren't you, as well. So had you read any of the Bridgerton stuff? I hadn't even heard of them. I mean, it was a brand new thing for me. I mean, the framework of the books certainly is there to frame the structure of the series.

But then, you know, it's got the Shonda What If by just plonking queen charlotte in the middle of it and saying okay so if we're going to um run with the idea of queen charlotte having um some african heritage in her which is which is documented um um then let's expand that um that romantic regency world and have a look at what if that's true, what about the other people of colour that may have been in the mix at the time, of which there were many,

and see what we do with that. So, yeah, I came to, I suppose I came to the show, because you never see a whole script, you just get your sides. So I came to the show really through Lady Danbury and the sides I got to look at for her, I just read them and went, yep, I can do something with her. And there's an energy and a dynamism about her.

And I, you know, I think of, you know, my Nana giving birth during an air raid in the basement of the Salvation Army Hospital in Liverpool. And my aunt in Ghana in 1969 getting on a plane with empty suitcases and going to New York and Paris and Milan and London because she loved fashion and she wanted to open a shop in Accra. I just think of all these fabulous, dynamic women who, you know, may not have easy lives, but they make the best of them and they're still fabulous and um they laugh with their friends and they commiserate with their i just wanted to celebrate those women and i sort of feel like lady danbury was a good space to do that with and the makeup the fuss around it the wigs the amount of time you have to spend this is this is graft isn't it i mean

how does it differ to shakespeare to playing richard iii well uh hmm for me uh if the character is interesting and good i'm happy and i don't care what the medium is it can be an audio book or it can be radio it can be a film whatever or theater or theatre. The difference in the prep is the stone cold horror and fear just before curtain up. When you go in and you have to go to the end and if you get yourself in a mess, you know, we can't go again. It's, you know, dig yourself out of that hole, my friend. The Lady Danbury, you know phone the alarm clock goes off at

half past three in the morning and you're thinking oh god no i beg you and then you fall into the car and then you sit in a makeup chair for three hours and um you come out as lady danbury so and then you put a wig on and then you can't lie then you put a corset on rather and then you can't lie down and you can't bend down and you better have a five ten minute warning if you need a pee because it's a mission all that sort of stuff you're absolutely describing jane's day pretty much tiny tiny final question from me and i'm sure jane has something that she'd like to ask you too you said something so clever about the over 40s woman as a consumer of the arts yes they download and stream the most podcasts and radio, but the people who are paying the most attention

are receiving the least attention. Yes. Which is such a canny way of putting it. What would you like to hear and see more of? Us. Us. Women of our age. Women with our delights and our experiences

and our continuing appetite for life. I expect to have a good three decades yet to go. Working, working as well. Oh, please, God, no. Please let me stop at some point. Well, not necessarily. I want to dig the bulbs up, you know, and have a gin and sit back. But I want to see our stories, you know. It's almost like we're still

in that that that space of going um if your womb can't push out a baby where you're we're no longer interested in you i want to see uh women uh with white hair reading the news you know i want to see the truth yeah that hasn't happened has it has it no it hasn't happened in britain and it should you're absolutely right yeah uh my final question was actually going to be, how can anyone take themselves seriously when Richard III was eventually found buried under a car park? Well, you know, that's what happens, doesn't it? That showbiz.

The great get dug up in Leicester in a car park. That's what happens. He probably had to download an app to get in, didn't he? Oh, don't. The parking, he probably had to do it. Oh, I haven't got that one, I've got Ringo. It's terrible isn't it? It's ridiculous. That was

Adjua Ando, she was fantastic company and I really hope that's whetted some appetite for Richard III which opens at the Liverpool Playhouse April 6th and then it moves to the Rose Theatre in Kingston later in April. The Liverpool Playhouse was where I saw,

I think it was the second night, Blood Brothers, the musical. It's still one of my favourite musicals. Loved it. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not always a huge fan of Shakespeare, but I would love to go and see that production of Richard III. I bet that's really good. Because when Adjoa was talking about using absolutely what Shakespeare has written, but trying to push into it a sense of something's not right, you're judging me for my disability, for my back, for my nastiness,

you know, all that stuff, putting onto it, you just think, wow, I'm so curious as to how you get the audience on side with a figure who, you know, if you play word association, Richard III, evil you play word association, Richard III, evil, nasty, whatever, kills two boys. History remembers him with, you know, not very much fondness. No. He was only king for two years. Well, that's even worse, isn't it? Well, he was killed in battle. So I suppose he checked out perhaps a little earlier than

he might have expected. Yeah. The last English king to die in battle, so I suppose he checked out perhaps a little earlier than he might have expected. Yeah. The last English king to die in battle, in fact. That's a stunning statistic. Yeah, and I've got another fact for you. Yes, is it about car parks? Well, it's loosely linked, yes, because it's a good pub quiz question, actually. This is just, only listeners to Off Air will be able to banter about this in the privacy of their own home,

or perhaps at a lady's function, or a gent's function, if that's your thing. Could it be a mixed function? It could be a mixed occasion. The late Queen, Elizabeth II, attended the funeral of three kings. Name them. Well, her father. Correct.

Would she have been old enough for her grandfather? This is why it's a good question. And Edward the Abdicator. Edward the Abdicator, because he died some years later. And... I was going to say Billie Jean. We've just been talking. Billie Jean? What are you on about?

Billie Jean King. Sorry. She's dead. No, I know. Apologies. I, I know. Apologies. I don't know. I don't know, Jane.

Richard the Bloody Third! Oh, it's like, because he was dug up and then re-buried. Oh, OK. And the Queen went. There's no need to lose the top of your coffee pot there. I was just perusing it. Oh, no, it's just, it's proof, I suppose, that it's quite a good question It is a good question Jane I didn't think of it, I read it somewhere

Blimey And it's only Monday I hope you do find your glasses I guess I'm not sure I can do this all week You've been surprisingly sympathetic today so let's see how we get on. Right.

Okay. Tomorrow, we're so excited because we've got Vanessa Feltz. Right, I'm going home to count my lids and my pans, although of course my chances of seeing anything will be extraordinarily limited. Right, good evening. A very good evening to you. you.

You have been listening to Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell. Now you can listen to us on the free Times Radio app or you can download every episode from wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget that if you like what you heard

and thought, hey, I want to listen to this, but live, then you can, Monday to Thursday, three till five on Times Radio. Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening and hope you can join us off air very soon. Goodbye.