It wasn’t until April 2002 that the BBC rode in to the rescue. Would I co-host a new show that would be big, live and test the IQ of the audience? My saviour was Test the Nation and my co-host was Anne Robinson. I make it a point to get on with everyone I work with. I love the job so much I want it to be enjoyable. I have worked with a lot of amazing female presenters – Fern Britton, Sarah Greene, Emma Forbes, Claudia Winkleman, Emma Willis, Amanda Holden, Ruth Langsford, Fearne Cotton, Carol Vorderman, Davina McCall, Clare Balding, Myleene Klass, Suzi Perry, Lorraine Kelly, Caron Keating, Alison Hammond, Christine Bleakley, Holly Willoughby, Rochelle Humes, Julie Etchingham. It is a very long list and they’re all amazing …
Anne Robinson was … unique. I liked Anne very much, she was fascinating. Her success on The Weakest Link had been global and, in her own words, her husband had only gone to America to carry the cash back, in real life, in the studio, she was as tough as her TV persona. As we sat in make-up, side by side, I told her we’d just bought a little house in Portugal.
‘How much was it?’ she asked.
‘Not expensive. It’s not grand, just a little farmhouse type of thing.’
‘How many staff?’
‘Staff?’ I laughed. ‘No staff, just us.’
‘Who cleans?’
‘We do.’
‘Who cooks?’
‘Er, we do.’
‘How quaint,’ she sniffed, and having lost interest, she turned back to the mirror.
She was fascinated by money. At the end of each show she wanted to know what I was going to buy with what I’d just earned. I was intrigued by the guy who was employed to put her earpiece in for her. When she was ready, she would tilt her head to one side and impatiently cough until he had spotted his cue and stuck it in her ear. When Anne rehearsed, there was silence; when I rehearsed, she looked at me and made a ‘papapapapa, tch tch tch shhhhh’ sound and clicked her fingers at me. I had to rehearse without actually speaking. I reiterate: I liked Anne, she was interesting to observe and unlike anyone else I’ve worked with, not brilliant technically, but quick and acid-tongued. A bit like a fairground curiosity.
Test the Nation did, however, give me the chance to forgive Piers Morgan. After the glowing review he had given me in Joseph, Piers and James Grant had a friendly relationship. Obviously, he still took no prisoners, but he was a bit of a fan so I got off lightly.
I was told by the office that Piers wanted to write a series of articles about me for the paper and he would love to have my cooperation. I said I was flattered and of course I’d do it; what did he need? Did I have any memorabilia he could use? Photos? An old BBC pass? A student railcard? As I think I’ve said, I save everything, so interesting bits and pieces were hunted down then sent to Piers. Nothing appeared in the paper. I was worried he may have lost all my mementos. We asked for them back. Nothing. Eventually, unannounced, they arrived safely back at the office.
A few weeks later, the unofficial biography he’d written about me, including all the stuff I’d sent him, appeared on the bookshelves. I was furious. Not so much that he had written the book, but that he had deceived me. We didn’t speak for a long time. There were awkward moments: once, the two us were in a lift for what felt like an endless descent. At a James Grant Christmas party, a heavily disguised Santa was hired. We all laughed as we sat on his knee and told him what we wanted. It turned out it was Piers. I was not amused.
Piers appeared a couple of times on Test the Nation, and one day I realized how stupid this feud was. I was angry, and he’d actually been flattering and kind in the biography (although utterly deceitful). It was time to make up. He was nervous when I walked over.
‘Enough,’ I said, and I shook his hand. We’ve been fine ever since. Lunch with Piers is always riddled with gossip. The book he wrote was called To Dream a Dream. It’s actually not a bad read, and mostly accurate.
10
Wow! Look where we are!
This Morning had been on my radar from the moment I watched the first-ever show from the Going Live office on the twelfth floor of the East Tower in 1988.
I always enjoyed travelling up to Liverpool to appear on it. There was a brilliant ‘organized chaos’ feel to the Albert Dock studios. I learned very quickly, through the experience of others, not to go on the show if I was one of the last guests of the day. Brilliant as Richard and Judy are, they were shocking at keeping to time. By the time they got to the end of the show they would be over-running so much that the last guest would regularly be dropped. That meant whoever it happened to be had invariably travelled from London the night before, stayed overnight in Liverpool, got up way too early and sat in the studio until twelve thirty, only to be told, ‘Sorry, couldn’t fit you in.’ Nope, I wasn’t having any of that. If I was expected to be on after midday, I wasn’t going. I’d been on the show to promote Joseph, Dolittle and a host of TV shows, and it was always great fun to do, because no one knew where Richard’s head would go.
When the show moved to London I was a guest on one of the first shows from the ITV Southbank studios. I accidentally made Judy cry. I knew that it had been a wrench for them to move from the North-west and at the end of the interview I asked how they were settling in to their new studio. Judy burst into tears. Slightly awkward.
I actually presented the show for a week with Caron Keating in 1998 and loved it. It was like Going Live, but for adults.
But going back through my diaries, it looks like it wasn’t until the week commencing Monday, 2 September 2002 that I had a meeting which may very well have been pivotal in almost every aspect of my life.
Fern Britton was presenting This Morning with John Leslie. The show was getting back on its feet. After Richard and Judy had left, it had had a rocky time with presenter chemistry. Colleen Nolan and Twiggy are both totally delightful ladies and, individually, they are very talented, but together as This Morning presenters they didn’t work so well. At the end of it, it wasn’t glory that everyone was covered in.
Fern and John had steadied the ship; their relationship on air was great. John floated the idea that he would like to take Fridays off. So, if that were to happen, who would do Fridays with Fern?
I wasn’t sure why ITV had asked if I would go in for a meeting. When I got there, I met the assistant head of Daytime TV. There was an opening on the show for a Friday presenter. Would I be interested? I said I would. I was told that a presenter on the show had to have certain qualities. To be versatile, trustworthy, happy to talk about family life, able to work with a team and interested in doing a wide variety of interviews. I said I was very happy with all that. ‘Then we are happy to have you on board.’
I saw it very much as a temporary job. I was pretty sure that John Leslie would eventually want his Fridays back,
but after working with Caron on the show I knew it was great fun. There is something about live television – people stand a little taller, are more alert, think faster. This Morning
was and is the best kind of live TV. Sometimes deadly serious, sometimes frivolous, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, occasionally inappropriate, and often ruder than you would think the time slot would allow.
David O’Brien and Lyn Evans, part of my ‘glam squad’.
Fern was warm and welcoming and introduced me to the team, some of whom are still working on the show. David O’Brien was Head of Wardrobe then and still is now. He has also, since the day I met him, designed everything I’ve worn on pretty much every show I’ve presented ever since. Lyn Evans was Fern’s make-up assistant and would also be mine. Mel Whiffen on autocue had started with Richard and Judy. She’s freelance these days but it’s still a delight when she pops in occasionally and says ‘hi’ and that she’s back for a couple of shows. We call Mel ‘the Predictor’ because she can change words in the script before you even suggest it. She can also read minds and can spot an issue long before it occurs. Floor manager Tim Carr had also started with Richard and Judy and still occasionally works on the show.
/> My time on This Morning was shaped by the intelligent, talented women who steered the ship. Shu Richmond, the editor; Debra Davidson, her deputy; the boss Dianne Nelmes and later Fiona Keenahan, Anya Francis and Helen Gibson were all totally switched on to the pulse of the show and the viewers and they were all so welcoming to me.
I think it’s safe to say that pretty much everyone who has worked on the show has a deep fondness for and pride in it. Many of the names you see on the list of credits after a programme finishes will have cut their teeth on This Morning. Invariably, someone will start out as a researcher, leave to get experience elsewhere and come back as a producer. Pete Ogden, who went on to become executive producer on Saturday Night Takeaway, started as a researcher at roughly the same time as I started, became a producer, left for a while and then came back as editor! We always joke that This Morning is like the Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
I loved my Fridays on the show. This Morning has its own broadcast language, which takes a few days to learn but, obviously, I revelled in that. Fern was a joy to work with, the team was fun, but I knew I was the stand-in – until one day in October 2002 when I wasn’t, because John Leslie had to leave suddenly.
The show must go on, but I knew how fond of John Fern was. These were definitely not the circumstances I wanted to take any job under. I was asked if I would step in from the following Monday and present the show. I agreed. I knew Fern and the team and so I knew I could be sensitive.
Fern and I presented This Morning together on the Monday. After every show there is always a meeting to discuss what happened during the show. What could we do better? What would be on tomorrow’s show? After the Monday meeting Fern said to me:
‘Are you in a rush?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Hang on here. I’ll be back in a minute.’
She rushed out of the meeting room. A minute later she was back, bringing with her a bottle of Scotch she had been given and two paper cups.
‘If we are going to work together, I think we’d better get to know each other,’ she said.
We drank most of the bottle. We were honest and open and it was both emotional and extremely funny. And no, I didn’t discuss ‘that’ with Fern because, in 2002, I was a very long way from even knowing ‘that’ existed. We talked about families, our ups and downs, our heads, what made us tick. I’m pretty sure I mentioned over that bottle that I didn’t just love my job, I was obsessed by TV, I always had been. I’m pretty sure I told her that I liked to look at all the aspects of a show I was presenting; it meant I spotted issues that might have been missed.
I’m pretty sure I mentioned all that.
If I didn’t, then I wish I had, because years down the line the fact that I had an eye on most things really pissed her off.
As we quickly got to know each other, it was clear that we had exactly the same sense of humour. It worked at the same speed for both of us, we were hopeless gigglers and we were both filthy. In all my TV career, those planets have only been perfectly aligned twice: with Fern and with Holly.
If you are really lucky, you achieve that holy grail of TV: chemistry. Chemistry is when you don’t have to try, when it’s natural and just ‘is’. Fern and I never discussed how we were going to present an item, or even who would go first in an interview; it just happened. We would always know where the other was going with something, always had the same questioning lines and ideas. It was delightful synchronicity.
It’s safe to say that with most professional people there is an ‘edit’ switch, or at least a reasonably effective control button to prevent whatever you are doing from descending into chaos. I’ve wondered if our giggling fits would have been as bad if we were working together but in another career. If that were true, thank goodness that, in an alternative universe, we weren’t standing next to each other in an operating theatre.
Occasionally, we were surprisingly unprofessional! We definitely laughed at the wrong times. We laughed at Mr Song Dong who came in with a city of biscuits because he had such a fantastic name. We laughed when we were told
we would meet a guest who was allergic to light and so her mother had written to NASA to get some of the material they used to protect astronauts from dangerous light radiation. We imagined a woman arriving in a discreet catsuit that could be worn under clothing. When our guest arrived, she sat down to do the interview in what resembled a full beekeeper outfit with huge protective headgear. Gradually, over the course of the interview the visor steamed up and we lost sight of the guest inside. That wasn’t our finest hour.
One morning I happened to say that I hated dunking
biscuits. Later in the show when we both had a slice of roast beef and a pot of horseradish in front of us, Fern innocently said, ‘There, you see. You don’t mind dunking a bit of beef, do you?’ There was a second’s beat where we both got there in our heads at the same time, and then the show fell apart.
We laughed when she said she had dropped a pot of mint sauce on her kitchen floor at home and it had splashed up the inside of her nighty. In make-up I called her ‘Minty minge’. On the telly, just calling her ‘Minty’ had the desired effect.
She made me roar when she said that once, she was closing a sash window whilst naked. She suddenly realized the next-door neighbour was looking up at her and immediately repeated the pose in front of the bedroom mirror to see how she looked! She thought she must have looked like the three of spades!
I had been presenting the show for a few weeks when Dianne Nelmes, the then Director of Daytime, asked to see me. It was a meeting that had been set up by Darren in the James Grant office. Dianne and I met after the show in one of the empty dressing rooms. It went disastrously wrong.
Dianne had been the editor on the show when it launched in Liverpool and it was she who brought Jeremy Kyle from radio to TV. We’d been getting on pretty well, I thought.
‘How are you enjoying the show?’ she asked.
‘I’m absolutely loving it,’ I gushed.
‘You have a great relationship with Fern, and the team love you.’
‘Well, that’s great to hear. I’m having so much fun with Fern and the team are fantastic.’
‘So we thought we’d better put you on tape – make it official, sort of thing,’ she said.
‘Oh!’ I laughed. ‘I thought it sort of was. I’m sorry. I think I’ve misunderstood.’
‘Not at all, but we’d like to offer it to you permanently, so we’ll need to set up an afternoon for an audition.’
‘Pardon?’
‘We would need to get an official audition down on tape.’
‘Er, well, I’ve sort of been presenting the show for weeks full time, and before that every Friday for months. Doesn’t that count as a successful audition?’
‘Well, no, not really.’
‘Well, this is a tricky one,’ I said. ‘Because I don’t think I’m prepared to audition for a show I’m already doing, and which, I should add, seems to be going pretty well.’
‘Well, I’m sorry, Phillip, but I must insist.’
‘With the greatest respect, Dianne, I’m going to have to decline the offer.’
‘Well, that’s such a shame, but thank you for everything.’
‘Okay. Well, thank you very much. I’ve had a great time.’
‘No, thank you.’
I left the dressing room and walked around the corner to my dressing room, opened the door and just stood there. What the hell had just happened? I called Daz in the office.
‘Hi, mate, it’s me.’
‘Hi, Phil. How did the meeting with Dianne go?’
‘Well, she fired me, or I might have resigned. I’m not totally sure.’
‘She what? What happened? What did you do?’
I explained. He said he had to go and make some calls.
At the same time, Dianne Nelmes was calling David Liddiment, the Director of Programmes.
‘David, it’s Dianne. I have a bit of a problem.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I just accidentally fired Phillip Schofield.’
‘You what?’
That afternoon there were numerous calls back and forth between James Grant and ITV. It was soon sorted out. It was just an unfortunate accident, a conversation that took a wrong turn. No damage done? Absolutely none.
Every time I see Dianne we laugh about that conversation and wonder how the hell it had gone so wrong. The following Monday, I was back on the TV as if nothing had ever happened. I’m still waiting for the audition idea to be formally abandoned. Maybe, after eighteen years, I’ve convinced them that I can do it. Dianne was, incidentally, a lovely boss.
The talented all-women powerhouse that drove This Morning.
I have an alarm bell that rings in my head in times of potential trouble on TV. It can ring way off in the distance, maybe get louder, maybe fade away as the potential danger passes. It can start to ring if I meet a guest and can tell that something is wrong. Sometimes, when I’m told something, it can be deafening from the start. In the meeting for one This Morning it rang very loudly.
‘We’re going to try to break a knife-throwing record.’
‘Live?!’ I asked. The alarm bells in my head started ringing.
‘Yes, definitely live.’
‘Shouldn’t we record it, just in case there’s an issue?’
‘No need for that. This couple have been in circuses for years. This is what they do.’
‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea.’
‘It’ll be fine. Don’t worry.’
If the alarm was loud in the meeting, it was deafening on the studio floor the next day. It was a young couple, and he would throw; she wouldn’t blink. She seemed a bit timid to me. Had it ever gone wrong? Apparently, nothing ‘serious’ had ever happened.
I whispered my concerns into my mic to the gallery. Were we sure this was okay?
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