When Recently Single Kathy Lette Met Guitarist Brian O'doherty She Just
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Exclusive Kathy LETTE PHOTOGRAPHY by WILL HORNER STYLING“Head by MAYA WYSZYNSKI over heels When recently single Kathy Lette met guitarist Brian O’Doherty” shein just had to “carpe thelove hell out of diem”. In a candid interview the couple talks to Juliet Rieden about finding love and laughter. athy Lette has a flick in her 2017 the high-profile Aussie couple I just had to learn to fly solo, socially. tail and whether it’s down was in the first throes of separation, I got so used to being a one-woman to the unquenchable passion unsure of what lay ahead but gingerly band that in the end we started of new love or the wonders working their way towards divorce, ‘individuating’, as therapists say. of HRT I have yet to which came through in 2019. That’s where you live under the same Kdiscover, but there’s no question “I adored him passionately and roof but you lead your individual she’s awash with pheromones. It’s he was the great love of my life, lives. A lot of people just carry on, true, the comedic author and national but we grew apart,” explains Kathy. but I didn’t want to live like that.” glitter ball is always upbeat, but “A lot of this was to do with the Kathy and Geoff shared a family behind the smiles and pun-tastic fact that he’s a workaholic, mostly home in north London and unpicking quips, the past few years have been working pro bono. Geoff would be their marriage has proved logistically undeniably tough. the first to agree with that! Basically, and emotionally gruelling. “It was horrible,” Kathy admits. I suffered from subpoena-envy,” “I instigated it and I think it takes After 28 years of marriage to human she smiles, cracking one of her a lot of courage for anyone to do that rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, trademark jokes. because dismantling our marriage was Kathy found herself navigating single “He’s on the side of the angels but like turning a giant cruise ship. It’s a life in her 60s. When we last spoke in was so busy saving the world that massive, huge, traumatic, harrowing → ALLISON BOYLE. HAIR AND MAKE-UP BY 82 The Australian Women’s Weekly | MAY 2020 MAY 2020 | The Australian Women’s Weekly 83 Exclusive undertaking, but I also knew it was are divorcing to remember what you quietly basking in the glory. He “I would say the right thing to do.” loved about them in the first place. actually is a great cook and the pair As she talks, Kathy’s intense love That huge bond, especially if you’ve immediately start jabbering about having been for Geoff is obvious, but she’s also had children, is still there and it’s his culinary triumphs, dinner parties pragmatic about life and love’s journey. really important that you cling to that. around at Kathy’s London place with married to two Geoff was Kathy’s second husband. Geoff and I definitely have. I love him. the likes of former Monty Python Eric She was married to media executive I love talking to him. I ring him often. Idle dropping round. The one they’re brilliant, alpha Kim Williams for six years from 1983 We discuss the political scenario. We reliving was supposed to be for and though a passionate and fiercely take the kids out. We’re probably eight but ended up with 26 people men, I’ve now loyal partner, Kathy is wise enough to getting on better now.” at the gathering. Brian made lasagne sense when it’s time to move on. and an amazing fish curry and lots got a beta male “I don’t see divorce as a failure; New love more besides and then afterwards I just see it as a change, because we We’re sitting in a restaurant a stone’s “everyone got the guitars out and live so long now. From honeymoon throw from Kathy’s Sydney apartment. started jamming … It went until and beta is to tomb can be 80 or so years. Geoff Over the past years she has spent 3am,” chirps Kathy proudly. and I had grown out of each other more and more time in Australia, Brian is one of nine (including three better.” and we wanted different things. We’d partly to be close to her octogenarian sets of twins), raised in a two-up, been together a long time and I think mum and three sisters, and partly two-down terrace in a close-knit I changed … I think women do change. because this is still very much where Catholic family in Derry. He grew up “Of course, I left school at 16. she feels at home. She always comes with “extraordinary women” who I always joke that the only over for an extended period during protected their family during the examination I’ve ever passed is my the Aussie summer, usually with son Troubles in Northern Ireland. It was cervical smear test,” she giggles. “But Jules, and those trips have become a terrible time that has left deep it’s true. I was always looking for longer and longer. This year she’s here scars and also claimed the life of his Henry Higgins [the erudite phonetics with another significant other – the brother, who died in a fire in London. teacher in George Bernard Shaw’s new man in her life, Brian O’Doherty. With bombs and fighting going on classic play Pygmalion]. I was always Kathy wasn’t expecting to find love outside, Brian retreated into music. looking for a man who was like a again, and from her dancing eyes and His father was a jazz pianist, and all teacher. A walking encyclopaedia. And constant smile it’s obvious she believes the family were innately musical, their of course, in Kim Williams I had that; she’s hit the jackpot. Brian has just childhood cloaked in music. Brian with Geoffrey I had that. But you joined us, and like Kathy he’s walking taught himself guitar and spent hours know, I’m 61 now. I don’t need their on air. He’s handsome, funny, charming picking out tunes in his own little intellectual nurturing in that way. and his Northern Irish lilt germinates world. His talent was prodigious and Hell, I’ve got three honorary its own romance. He’s also a million organic and he quickly developed into doctorates! I kind of outgrew that miles from Kathy’s previous partners. a brilliant classical guitarist. He won role of being Eliza Doolittle. Even at “I would say having been married a Belfast music festival competition the end of Pygmalion, Eliza Doolittle to two brilliant alpha men, I’ve now and then went to the Royal Academy outgrows Henry.” got a beta male and beta is better of Music in London. It’s an interesting analogy because because they love to shop and mop, Brian’s career has taken him all over with her early literary success with her cook and clean. Brian adores me. the world, from Brazil to the US and debut – now iconic – novel Puberty He doesn’t bore me and he does all Britain, and today he writes music for Blues (Kathy was just 20 when it was my chores for me but is secure enough theatre productions. He has never published) and subsequent career as in his masculinity not to find that married – “I just keep galloping,” an incisive, best-selling comic author, threatening,” says Kathy, breaking jokes the 54-year-old – but he does Kathy is no slouch in the intellect into a rhyming patter, which is part have a 20-year-old son who now lives stakes. Indeed, her sharp-witted, bawdy comedy but also based firmly in in Ireland and who Brian is close to. and fiercely feminist one-woman stage reality. “He’s a man’s man, good at It seems fitting that it was music shows are packed from London to DIY and hitting the cat burglar over that brought Brian and Kathy Basingstoke; Canberra to Wollongong. the head with the bread board, but together, although their chance And career aside, I would posit that then whipping up a sonnet, a soufflé meeting was the stuff of soap opera. it is Kathy who has proved to be the and a prelude. Men are always asking “It was almost like a Richard Curtis smart one in matters of the heart. me what women want in bed. The rom-com. For someone like me She says the most important thing answer is BREAKFAST! Is there who’s an investigative satirist, when you split is to salvage friendship anything more aphrodisiacal than it’s so mawkish and clingingly which she has always achieved, a man in a cooking apron?” embarrassing,” Kathy winces. “He staying close to both of her exes. Brian is already used to Kathy’s was playing Bach in the park, sitting BRIAN WEARS SCOTCH & SODA SHIRT AND COUNTRY ROAD CHINOS. CHINOS. ROAD COUNTRY AND SHIRT SODA & SCOTCH WEARS BRIAN “I really encourage my friends who banter. “I leap over it,” he jibes, under a tree. Hello! I heard this → 84 The Australian Women’s Weekly | MAY 2020 MAY 2020 | The Australian Women’s Weekly 85 Exclusive to. “I’m very minimal, really. I don’t the pressures on Kathy and is full of to leave their husbands? For whom? “I was in have many material possessions. I’ve admiration for her. “I’ve seen Kathy Or change their husbands.