Nightime Treasure: Joanne Good (con't)
Good didn’t intend to be a radio host. A trained actor, she played the character, Carole Sands in the long-running British soap opera Crossroads. When that gig ended, she went on tour with the play Educating Rita (also a movie with Michael Caine). Producers flagged her to do PR about the show on local radio stations and at a stop in Brighton, they loved her take on life so much, she was invited to come back in periodically to do reviews of other shows. When she eventually moved to Brighton, a job followed as the host of the Breakfast show on BBC Brighton. After 6 years there, London – the UK’s largest market – called. Another 6 years have gone by since she’s been successfully engaging notoriously grumpy Londoners.
But she hopes London isn’t the
final stop in her radio career. “My
dream is to work in America. I
have tried endlessly to work in
New York.” She’s come close,
almost landing a job with Sirius
Satellite Radio, the current home
of Howard Stern. “I’ve gone up
and down that lift at Sirius Radio
a dozen times. I got so close…
but then it all fell through. But I
would be there like a shot; even
just to read out the weather reports!”
She says she has three agents working for her trying to make that dream come true or some version of it, “I say to my agents, I want to do both, radio and television, make it happen!” In the meantime, she has an audience who is addicted to her show, her 2-year-old bulldog Matilda who she adores and brings into the studio once a week (when she dedicates an hour of the show to all things about dogs) and of course, her boyfriend – partner – Big George, another BBC host whose previous 10pm-2am time slot she commandeered and who now comes on just after her at 2am every morning.
“When he was doing the overnight show, George use to see me arrive and started telling his audience what I was wearing and how gorgeous [he thought] I was. It made me furious and I used to go an air and say how sad I thought he was with his ponytail. My co-host Jon Coleman used to say he knew I secretly loved the compliments.” Coleman was right because Good and George soon hooked up. “George and I got off together at the Christmas party!”
Good says she “loves that George is a huge, loud 6’2” giant who is totally childlike. I’m very devious but he hasn’t a devious bone in his body.” They’re in the same business and on the same radio station but that apparently hasn’t hindered their relationship, “I’m very volatile, so if something happens at work that upsets me, I sound off. George is always telling me to calm down and think before I act. He just takes everything at work in his stride. We become a bit competitive and hate listening to each other’s shows because we both talk about our lives.”
Married to an actor who constantly cheated on her (and who’s been married six times since they divorced), Good says she has no interest in getting married again and not being a mother has never been an issue for her “I love my life too much. I wasn’t going to hand any part of it over to anyone, especially kids.” But there is one significant way not having children has made a difference, “The one topic I can’t converse about [with guests] is childbirth but that doesn’t merit giving birth, just so I could have an anecdote.”
Good is currently filming a “dogumentary” about dogs for Sky 1 TV which will air this Fall, “Dogs have taken over my life.” And she’ll soon have a camera in her studio so her loyal audience can see the radio show in action. You can listen to Jo’s radio show here every night starting at 5pm EST and she loves emails from her audience, joanne.good@bbc.co.uk. Sirius Satellite Radio execs, are you listening?
Check back next week to read Jo Good’s favorite things to do in London and her take on the perfect weekend in the capital.
