Jenny Eclair on Taskmaster and why she loves reality TV

My father was absent a lot because he was in the army. I was born in Kuala Lumpur, but my first memory is after we’d moved back to England, when I was living with Mum in Blackpool.

I was around three when Dad came home from Arabia, where he was stationed; he put me on his shoulders and pretended that he didn’t know where we lived. We went up and down the road, with him going down the wrong garden paths and asking, "Is it this house?".

My mother was extraordinary. She was an army wife who didn’t work, didn’t do much housework and read a lot of books. She only just died this year, actually. My parents had longevity. They had rubbish hair and my dad had rubbish legs and genetically I haven’t been blessed with very much, but longevity does run in the family.

Dad was 90 when he died and Mum was 93. She was probably the most stoic woman I’ve ever met. I’m on loads more heart medication than she ever was. She contracted polio when she was 22 but I think she took half an aspirin her entire life.

Jenny Eclair learnt from a young age how to make people laugh

I was around four when I found I could make people laugh. I used to gatecrash my parents’ dinner parties, where I’d come down wearing my dad’s hats. I liked attention.

We didn’t have a television and made up a lot of stories to entertain ourselves. There was a giddiness inside me that I could feel and I just liked laughing, making others laugh and pulling faces.

I went to several different schools including a very progressive primary school in Berlin, which set me up for a fall because it was all about using your imagination, interactive play, no sums and really good food at lunchtime with napkins. It was really civilised and I thought every school was going to be like that.

After Berlin, Dad was stationed in Barnard Castle, in the North East of England, and I went to a notoriously rough school where they were still beating children for not eating potatoes with maggots in them.

The whole school used to line up to see someone get plimsoled, you were issued with one thick pencil and had to ask for toilet paper. But that was probably good for me because I was becoming a little too precious.

As a teenager I was at a disco in Blackpool pretending to be French when someone asked me my name. I was born Jenny Hargreaves but I said "Jenny Eclair". A few years later I used it when I was in the punk band called Cathy La Crème and the Rum Babas and the name just stuck.

By the way, I hate rum babas. They’re disgusting. I can’t stand alcohol-based puddings. I’m a big fan of alcohol but not in desserts.

I studied drama at Manchester Polytechnic and the school was meant to be a good one, but it was terrible. I got a free place and a grant so I couldn’t ask for my money back.

My niece is studying at LAMDA now and they work them all day, every day. I got nothing like that. It was a sloppy, undisciplined, half-baked course. Mind you, I was a bit of a drop-out, had an eating disorder [anorexia] and I was terribly immature. I was so excited to have left home and to have this freedom that I didn’t really appreciate it.

I worked as a life model for a while and I have absolutely no shame about it. I could take my clothes off in front of a class and I wouldn’t be fazed. I have absolutely no prudishness. I despise it and it annoys me in any form. When it comes to art, the nude has been around forever, hasn’t it?

I trained as an actress but I wasn’t any good, so after the polytechnic I was more drawn towards cabaret performance­—which was my way of doing something that wasn’t acting but was still on stage. It became apparent to me quite quickly that doing my own stuff and making my own decisions was the way forward.

After a bumpy start as a mother, Jenny Eclair is now very close with her children

I was a rubbish mother at first. Phoebe was born in 1990 and I wasn’t much good until she learned to talk, then we could barter and emotionally bribe each other with stuff.

Seeing her now with her son, I realise I skipped out on it as soon as I could. I got a childminder when she was about five months old and I abdicated all responsibilities as soon as possible. But I’m glad to say that we are very close now.

Jenny Eclair's career got a turbo charge when she joined the Grumpy Old Women line-up

Winning the Perrier Award in 1995 was an honour because I was the first solo female performer to do so. But I think it was one of those occasions where I was everybody’s second favourite and they couldn’t agree on a favourite-favourite, so I snuck in there.

No one really knew what to do with me because the show at that time was so filthy that it couldn’t be aired on television. There was this kind of lull where it was like "She’s won but now what?". But I just stuck around and chipped away.

Grumpy Old Women came along in 2004 through the producer Judith Holder, a dear friend who I now do the Older and Wider podcast with. Grumpy Old Men came first but Grumpy Old Women was much better because Judith filmed a lot of reality stuff in her own home with her husband and kids rather than just having talking heads.

I was skint at the time and it was like, "It’s £400 so why not?". It was a sea change in my career because I got recognised loads more in supermarkets. I’ve no idea whose idea it was to do a live show but we did four in the end and it was great fun.

One of my worst onstage experiences was when I had food poisoning while performing at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle. I threw up two or three times during the show. I managed to get to the wings but couldn’t get my mic off in time, so the audience could hear me retching. The other two "old women" had to prolong the sketches.

I’m still friends with Dom Joly, whom I met on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in 2010, and I was happy to come third. But the weather was awful. Everybody thinks November in Australia is going to be really hot but it was raining and muddy, and at night it was so cold. I lost loads of weight, so at least it was good for that.

Being a panellist on Loose Women was such a laugh. I was devastated when they didn’t want me anymore, because at the time [2011-2012] it was filmed at the South Bank studios, really close to where I live.

We had great guests like Joan Collins, somebody from Blur, lots of other people, and the bookers had a radar for who was going to work as a guest and who wasn’t, so there was never anybody awkward to deal with, plus Loose Women is not usually big Hollywood names.

I love doing reality TV and I especially loved doing Splash! Tom Daley is so impressive. I don’t normally fangirl about anybody but I think he’s marvellous. He was there teaching us how to dive, along with the Olympic diving blokes, and what’s not to love about that?

I’ve had such a ball doing reality telly, and I’ll do as many as they chuck at me. I’m on Taskmaster now and, although I’m not allowed to divulge any details, it’s like progressing back to primary school. It’s a playground where there’s no meanness.

Jenny Eclair met her now husband Geoff in a bar where she was working in Covent Garden

My 60th birthday coincided with everything being closed down. It was May 16, 2020, but I don’t do parties—I’m very antisocial—and I eventually had a belated celebration in Stockholm with the old man Geoff [Powell] two years later.

Speaking of Geoff, we met when I was walking down the road and he was underneath his Porsche, fixing it. We gave each other a look, then days or weeks later he came into the bar where I was working in Covent Garden. He didn’t sit in my station but I said, “Table five is mine,” and it just went from there.

Jenny Eclair is currently on Taskmaster on Channel 4, Thursdays at 9pm. She is touring the UK with her Sixty Plus! (FFS!) show from September 2. For tickets visit jennyeclair.com

Read more: Books that changed my life: Jenny Eclair

Read more: Victoria Wood: A life in comedy

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