Tough formative years shaped formidable, fearless, funny character

Janet Street-Porter is off the Leash
Kenton Theatre
Thursday, September 11

JANET Street-Porter couldn’t care less what people think, and true to form she was her formidable, no-nonsense self at the Kenton Theatre — and extremely funny and likeable.

With the caveat that she was under strict instruction not to mention four names for legal reasons, she went on to discuss some of the characters and situations she had had to contend with, some funny, some just plain bonkers.

As she took the audience on a journey through her childhood in Fulham, her teen years — discovering boys and music — and on to her battles as a working-class girl in the patriarchal media world of the Eighties, it became clear why Janet doesn’t give a damn.

Born just after the Second World War, to a mother and father who were married to different people at the time, later joined by a sister, Janet posited that her father, Stanley, had what we now recognise as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Her mother, Cherry, was extremely conscious of what people thought of the family, to the extent that when little Janet and her sister, Patricia, had dysentery, she arranged for the ambulance to collect them round the back of the house.

Janet concluded that the neighbours must have been more traumatised by the strange disappearance of these two little girls during the night.

Later becoming obsessed by quizzes, the young Janet was to join all manner of clubs. She took to writing a diary, describing herself as “slightly OCD” about details, itemising her Mod gear and who had paid for it and when.

She would mention boys’ names, whoever was flavour of the week, and write reviews of music gigs, memorably describing the Rolling Stones one night as “not bad”.

After her wedding to Tim Street-Porter, which secured her a nice, long byline for her articles, four marriages later Janet said that she had let her husbands down, rather than being let down by them.

In the second half, Janet read out questions put to her by the audience.

Someone had asked about her goal to say hello to a stranger every day. Janet retorted, “Every day, they say hello to me and prod me in the supermarket, asking ‘Are you Janet Street-Porter?’” to which she would reply “Who else would want to look like this?”

Despite her high-flying career, Janet confessed that whenever she went to the hairdressers, she would still meekly accept whatever cut she was given, as it worked for her.

When asked who she did or didn’t get on with on Loose Women, she said simply to observe who appeared on the show together, or not.

Ranting about the dangers of bath oil for someone of advancing years, Janet admitted to being part “bionic woman” with various hip and knee surgeries — but she still seemed pretty battle-fit and up for a laugh to this audience.

Natalie Aldred