Sue Perkins Gay Celebrity Comedy Actress
By Siobhan Donegan
It has recently come to my attention that regular readers of my articles have been asking if I could write an article, or a number of articles on gay women, and thus I have decided to write this article on Sue Perkins. Sue Elizabeth Perkins is a famous celebrity who is a comedian, actress, TV presenter, writer and broadcaster. She is also gay, which I will discuss later in the article. Perkins is also a talented musician having studied music to a serious level of comprehension and has reached ‘grade 8’ on her instrument of choice, the Piano. She is in all probability most famous as part of a comedy duo with Mel and Sue. She has most recently won recognition presenting the ‘Great British Bake Off’.
The eldest of three siblings, Perkins was born in East Dulwich, Croydon London, where she grew up together with her parents. Her Mother Ann worked as a secretary, while her Father Burt was employed by a local car dealer. Perkins was educated at the independent school for girls in South Croydon-Croham Hurst School.
Sue Perkins has in fact been described as one of the UK’s ‘best loved’ TV presenters, and has made a successful career not only in television but also as a radio broadcaster amongst other creative endeavours. However, despite apparently being a very shy child it would appear that even from a young age Perkins has been a high achiever. It was while studying English at the University of Cambridge at New Hall, now renamed Murray Edwards College, that she first met Mel Giedroyc. A meeting that perhaps sealed their fate towards a career in the media in the and fame. Mel and Sue have in fact been friends for 27 years. Mel Giedroyc is in fact, through her father Michal, a descendant of Lithuanian Royalty that resided in Poland until 1939.
Having met at University in the 1980’s (and graduated), Perkins and Mel Giedroyc started writing material that they intended to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This is precisely what they went on to do and they were in fact short-listed for the Daily Express ‘Best Newcomers’ award at the Festival in 1993. Also, I should briefly mention here that ‘Mel and Sue’, as a famous comedy double act was actually taken on tour for many years. After this they initially spent a few years writing for comedy household names ‘French and Saunders’, even making the occasional appearance in the TV Show. After this, they appeared and Co-Hosted the Channel 4 lunchtime show called ‘Light Lunch’ and also ‘Late Lunch’, which was an evening version in the late 1990’s.
As already mentioned Perkins is also a writer. In October 2015, she published her ‘memoir’ ‘Spectacles’. She is also the Author of an ‘autobiographical travel book ‘East of Croydon: Blunderings through India and South East Asia’. Perkins as such has been acknowledged as an accomplished author. Not only has her travel book been shortlisted in the ‘Autobiography of the Year category’ at the 2018 National Book Awards, Perkins has also acted in the capacity of Judge for the 2009 Man Booker Prize.
In 2010, Sue Perkins and Giles Cohen, who had previously appeared together on the BBC2 series ‘The Super-sizers Go and the Super-sizers Eat’ were commissioned by the BBC2 to emulate ‘Tom’ and ‘Barbara’s’ self-sufficient lifestyle in the brilliant and hilarious classic sitcom ‘The Good Life’, in a show entitled ‘Giles and Sue live the Good Life’.
Here I would like to mention the fact that Perkins has actually appeared in August 2012’s ‘Tatler’s’-‘list of high profile lesbians in London’. Perkins is currently, to the best of my knowledge, in a relationship with Anna Richardson, who is also a TV Presenter. Perkins was actually outed as a lesbian in 2002 by ex-girlfriend Rhona Cameron. In fact, Cameron revealed that Perkins was Gay during her appearance on ITV’s ‘I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here’, probably one of the worst TV shows ever created in my opinion. However, Perkins obviously having a great and philosophical sense of humour remarked in response to this:
“Being a lesbian is only about the 47th most interesting thing about me.”
As already mentioned, Perkins has been in a relationship with TV Presenter Anna Richardson, who is known from presenting the TV Show ‘Naked Attraction’. Richardson talking about her relationship with Perkins told Lorraine Kelly, ‘We met at a party and I was recently single and we just……all I can say, there was an understanding and for me the planets aligned’, furthermore, she described Perkins as ‘absolutely extraordinary’.
Perkins, in her turn, speaking to the Guardian about her relationship stated that Richardson:
“Has done quite a lot to still the gyroscope of my whirring brain.”
Whilst doing research for this article, I was interested to find out if Perkins had ever talked about what it was like when she realised that she was Gay. Interestingly enough Perkins has talked about the fascinating fact that when she was much younger, both she and her boyfriend at the time were going through a ‘confusing time’, as both were struggling with ‘similar problems’ with their sexuality (her boyfriend was Gay as well).
In an interview with Desert Island Discs in which she talked about her own sexual orientation, Perkins courageously revealed that when she first realised that she was Gay, she had the ‘violent reaction’ of just wanting to ‘throw up’, further explaining that this was ‘so far from my frame of reference’ (this can be understood as the ‘frame’ of heteronormativity or the heteronormative binary). However, I’m glad to say Perkins obviously came to terms with her own sexuality, being intelligent and mature enough to be true to herself.
Perkins has also unfortunately been the victim of showbiz gossip or more accurately online harassment. However, Perkins claimed that the rumours in question were ‘fabricated’. This specific rumour, which was started on Twitter, was that Perkins was the favourite to become the new presenter for the TV Show ‘Top Gear’, after the departure of Jeremy Clarkson had made a vacancy available. As a result of this, Perkins temporarily quit the Twitter media site but decided to return in August 2015.
Turning now to a more positive story, Mel and Sue were revealed to be the new hosts of the very popular classic quiz show ‘The Generation Game’ in an announcement on July 2017. The BBC Show was scheduled to air the first episode in Easter 2018. Unfortunately, the show initially suffered from bad ratings; however, I’m glad to say that the Mel and Sue ‘reboot’ of the household quiz show will be given another run in the future.
In 2017, Mel and Sue’s rise to comedy fame was documented and broadcast by Channel 5’s ‘Sue Perkins Comedy Greats: The Entertainers and Funny Women: The Mel and Sue Story’. Finally, I would like to simply say that I’ve always personally found Mel and Sue very entertaining, and I hope that they both continue to be successful as a double act, and in their respective solo careers.
