Mel & Sue on "womance" and their new chat show
Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins met 26 years ago in a comedy club. The nation’s favourite double act riff on friendship, funny women and family...
She is annoyed by people who poke fun at her hometown of Croydon. “Croydon was very good to me,” she says. That sounds like an unlikely slogan...
“No, I genuinely mean this. It’s easy to slag somewhere off because it doesn’t look pretty but I made a radio documentary and spoke to a guy who had arrived there from Haiti and he described it as ‘paradise’. After what he had come through – of course it is. Croydon is paradise.”
On people coming out of, or staying in, the closet she says intensely, “Do you know what? Live and let live. I am so mellow about it,” having shredded into smithereens several mint leaves from a glass of water, and piled them in front of her.
Sue is the oldest of three children – her father, Bert, was a car salesman and her mother, Ann, a secretary. Mel is the youngest of four with a Polish immigrant father, Michal – hence her surname (Giedroyc) – who was imprisoned in Siberia during the war, and qualified as an engineer after arriving, with nothing, in Britain in 1947. Giedroyc, incidentally, is pronounced Ged-roytch. “But when you look at it,” Mel admits, “it’s just a sort of mish-mash of strange consonants – like one of those Countdown conundrums.”
Sue is godmother to Florence – “I am a terrible godmother!” she says immediately.
Mel: “You’re not, mate.” She tells me that Sue gave Flossie her first pair of really cool shoes – black patent Doc Martens. “She wore them every day for two years and eventually they fell apart. You’ve always been brilliant with children.”
Would you have liked to have children of your own, Sue? “Yes, I would have liked to have had kids, yeah.”
Mel: “We’re both big family people from big, characterful...” Sue finishes her sentence: “...maternally driven families.”
After her children were born, Mel became more involved in religion – both comics were brought up Catholic.
“Coming from a half-Polish background,” Mel says, “culturally, it’s very important in a way that maybe it isn’t to English Catholics.” She says that it’s more about having space and time where she’s not thinking about her own “stupid things... and it’s comforting. But don’t get me started on the whole politics of the Catholic Church.”
Sue describes herself as “deeply spiritual” rather than religious. It may sound a bit sappy, but is their aim to strive to be good people? “The idea that wanting to try to do good in the world is sappy, is an indictment of where we are, then, maybe?” says Sue, crossly. “If that becomes a headline – great! Because we both want to be really good people.”
Mel: “The older I get, as well, bloody hell – time’s running out. I just feel, jeez, there’s so much to do. I’m not going to try to change the planet but make changes just in a small way.”
Sue says that a friend has got her into doing a random act of kindness every day: “And it has to be done so that the person you’re being kind to, doesn’t know you’ve done it – so there’s nothing of the self in it.”
Mel: “God, every day, mate, that’s tough.”
Sue: “Every single day and every single night I also write down three things that I have loved about the day – so you’re always thankful and you’re always trying to do something good. I’ve done it for the last six months and I will do it for the rest of my life.
“The thing about Mel and I is that we love each other but most importantly – and this is what connects all true friendships – we share the same beliefs and the same values, and actually, without wishing to be boring and hippy about the whole thing, there’s a link – if you behave well, you feel well.”
If guys have a name for their long, passionate, platonic friendships – bromance – then we need to have one for the gals, too. How about womance, I suggest? Mel looks at Sue: “Yes, we’re happy with that.” So it’s official, then – Mel and Sue have had a 26-year womance.
Mel & Sue begins on ITV today (12th January) at 4.00pm
