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Fast, funny and fabulously frank, Loose Women has been a daytime favourite for 20 years. Sophie Heawood on tales of Noel Gallagher’s mum, cellulite and on-air bust-ups
I am sitting in the live audience at a TV studio, being taught how to feel my feelings. “What do we do when something’s funny?” the charming young man on set asks us, bursting into laughter for us to imitate. “What do we do when something’s sad or moving?” he continues, launching into a big, gooey “Awwww!” that we all repeat. “And what do we do when something’s important and needs to be said?” he adds, before clapping vigorously. Finally, after making the largely female room squeal with laughter about how he might work here but he’s only ever been with men and wouldn’t know what to do with it, love, he announces: “Think of yourselves as the fifth Loose Woman.” At which point the other four Loose Women appear to whoops and cheers, an autocue starts rolling with something for the anchor to read about learning to love your cellulite, and the live broadcast of television’s guiltiest, stealthiest pleasure begins.
Two hours earlier I was in the dressing room with Coleen Nolan, Brenda Edwards, Nadia Sawalha and Andrea McLean – actually, I was in the corridor when Nadia rushed past, pointing at her face saying, “Don’t worry, it gets better,” which turned out to mean she was about to be plastered in just enough glamorous makeup and hair products to still look relatable, this being the key concept of a daytime talk show that needs viewers at home to feel these women could be their best friends. It’s a concept that clearly works, because Loose Women, with its rotating cast of female presenters who discuss funny and painful issues from their personal lives as well as debating what’s in the news, is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary. It might be a noisy show, but it has quietly become one of TV’s greatest success stories. So why, I asked them, does nobody admit to watching it? Continue reading...