The Bearded Ladies Radio 4 Series was broadcast in the coveted 6.30 slot in January 2004. They were joined by Ewan Bailey and produced by Carol Smith. Below is an interview by Nicola Hicks Click the link to see Ewan’s web page http://www.ewanbailey.com

There’s bare-faced cheek aplenty this week as Radio 4 raises a glass to 2004 with a new, razor-sharp sketch show from the Bearded Ladies. Close friends and comedy duos Oriane Messina & Fay Rusling and Charlotte McDougall & Susie Donkin join forces in the four-part series, an inspired collection of brilliantly observed, fast-moving skits. As they take a break from rehearsals, the foursome talk to Nicola Hicks about their mischievous comic creations and shed some light on their fondness for facial hair.

Whether tackling relationships, work, play, being a mother, having a mother, first dates or last dates, the Bearded Ladies have a talent for creating a cocktail of comedy out of everyday life and adding a twist of madness. It’s a recipe that has brought them much individual success as writers for TV shows such as Smack The Pony and radio’s Dead Ringers, and now sees them shaking things up on Radio 4 as they perform their own material on air for the first time.

The series features a rib-tickling mix of characters – from the woman with empty nest syndrome and a ‘384-month-old’ son, to the interviewee for a pole-dancing job who tries to gloss over her year as a management consultant (‘we all make mistakes…’)

“We wanted to do a show that was observational, based on what you see around you,” explains Rusling. “What we want is for people to be able to say, ‘Oh, I do that,’ or ‘I know someone just like that’. So it’s grounded in some sort of reality, though it does go off into something that’s a bit mad as well….”

Though each member writes scenes separately, the sketches tend to come together during the mammoth writing sessions they have at each other’s homes, drinking tea, eating pizza (“it has to be a good one. We tried a healthy one once but it didn’t really go down very well – too much celery and carrot”) and talking about their friends and family.

“The people who are around us in our everyday lives are definitely our inspiration,” says Donkin, whose 18-month-old daughter throws plenty of comic moments into the mix. “Though it can get out of hand when you go out with friends and start thinking, ‘Oh, maybe someone will tell a funny story I can use in a sketch…”

So is there a danger that some of their friends might tune in on New Year’s Eve and hear themselves drifting out of the speakers?

“Well, we do tend to use people’s names, which can be a bit of a worry, but not usually combined with their characteristics,” admits Messina. “Though you’ll normally find that, if it’s a bad characteristic, that person would never recoginse themselves anyway!”

Though they describe the series as “a woman’s view on the world, or a man’s view of what is increasingly a woman’s world”, the Bearded Ladies bristle at the idea of writing “female comedy”.

“We write about things that happen to everybody, not just to women. You can only write about what you know, so maybe we do write slightly more about women things but that’s not the intention. It’s nothing that men wouldn’t recognize too, though they might have a slightly different take on it,” says Rusling.

One man who is definitely in on the joke is actor Ewan Bailey, who joins the quartet for the series and who, Donkin insists, “has about 765 radio shows on his CV”. Though they had never met before producer Carol Smith brought them together, the Ladies and Bailey (who has appeared in award-winning comedies The Sunday Format for Radio 4 and BBC TV’s People Like Us) hit it off immediately.

“It wasn’t until we met Ewan and he was doing stuff with us that half of the material came to life. It made a real difference to have a male voice and he’s such a strong performer,” says Rusling. “We call him our rock”. (“But not in a Paul Burrell way” adds McDougall.)

The Bearded Ladies themselves have been working together since first striking up a friendship at the Edinburgh Fringe three years ago.

“Susie and I and Oriane and Fay were there in 2000, and we went to see each other’s shows and mutually admired them,” says McDougall.

“Then we hung around a bit in Edinburgh and got together over beers. There are not many female comedy double acts up there, so you tend to think ‘We’re up against these people!’” laughs Rusling.

“That year we were really lucky because there were quite a few strong female performers and we all really got along. There’s always this myth that women aren’t going to get on working together but it wasn’t like that at all.”

Hamble-born Rusling and Londoner Messina met in 1997, while touring in some “very cheesy” Agatha Christie plays.

“Fay was always playing old lady detectives, and I was always the sexually repressed doctor’s receptionist or slightly ditzy maid – two very crucial roles,” explains Messina. “We were mostly playing to pensioners and they loved it, though there’d be lots of hearing aids going ‘Woo-ooo!’ or you’d be there, trying to be really dramatic, crying ‘I killed him!’ and some old lady would say, ‘Oh, what a lovely dress…’”

The pair found they shared a similar sense of houmour and a passion for writing, and soon dumped Miss Marple and Co in favour of writing for top comedy shows, including Radio 4’s award-winning Dead Ringers and Yes Sir I Can Boogie and TV’s Smack The Pony. Their now-famous “woman parking” sketch even saw them nominated in a BBC poll for 2002’s Best Comedy Moment.

McDougall, originally from Norfolk, and Plymouth-born Donkin, meanwhile, met on the set of a Greek tragedy at Edinburgh University, back in the days when they “wore a lot of black and did some really awful student drama”. Five years later, and the duo were delighting critics with their writing talent and perfect comic timing on stage, as well as crafting off-the-wall gags for TV and radio.

Finally having the chance to make their own radio series is clearly a dream come true for the performers. But comedy is a notoriously hairy business and, despite their sparkling credentials, the Bearded Ladies admit that they have all, at some time or another, had to take it on the chin.

“Take our first show at Edinburgh,” says Messina. “Fay and I played to exactly two people. We didn’t know you could give out free tickets to your first show, nobody told us. But they smiled the whole bloody way through it, they were really nice – a young couple, holding hands while we pranced around with a fake leg on a rubber dinghy.”

The comedians have certainly come a long way since then and reveled in a rapturous reception at the sell-out recording of their first radio show last week. But, though some memories may be painful, their early double act days did, at least, furnish the whisker-free foursome with their name.

“Because we’re two female double acts, whenever we’ve done our shows on stage, somebody inevitably has to be a man, which involves wearing a beard – so that’s really why we decided on the Bearded Ladies,” reveals Messina.

“What’s weird is that loads of people have gone, ‘Oh, that’s a really subversive sort of name, like the barded ladies freak shows from the circus.’ But it really wasn’t that at all!”

“And you know how men like putting on women’s clothes? Well, we love putting on facial hair,” adds Donkin. “We really wanted to come today with full-on moustaches and beards but we weren’t allowed…”

Whiskers or no, keep an eye on the Bearded Ladies – they could well be the next hairs to the comedy throne.

Interview by Nicola Hicks