Janet Street Porter: “I had a huge love affair with Yorkshire, in fact it hasn’t ended even though I no longer live there”

“I was filming in Kirkbymoorside in the summer and I realised just how much I love the countryside in Yorkshire, the colours the heather. I will never not love it. I got married in Harrogate to husband number three and we went for tea at Bettys and I really like a Fat Rascal."

And she wasn’t just content to just live there – she campaigned for a bridge over the River Wharf at Burley in Wharfedale Anyone walking in that area had to walk so far round. But I don’t know where that campaign ended up.” Despite being a Londoner Street-Porter is a passionate walker even being chairman of the Ramblers Association.

She says she decided to move out of Yorkshire because it was becoming increasingly difficult to commute to London – the isolation that had drawn her to the area ended up forcing her to leave it.

"We lived up a reservoir road that wasn’t snow ploughed in the winter which made it very difficult to get to the station at Northallerton which I would commute from.” She now lives on ‘an island in Norfolk’, although she does still have a base in London. “When I am in my house I want to be able to look really awful I am quite a solitary person and although I do still have a base in London I go there less and less. Even though I am a Londoner I now only go there for work.”

She says she is excited to be returning to Yorkshire with her one woman show which she will bring to Pocklington and Northallerton later this year and Beverley and Halifax next Spring.

“There are 27 dates altogether spread out across the country,” says Street Porter who explains the idea behind the show.

“In the early 2000s after I’d done I’m a Celebrity (Get Me Out of Here) I wrote two book of memoirs. The first one Baggage was about why I didn’t get on with my mum. The second Fall Out is from when I ran away from home got married and covers my early career in journalism and television including punk and meeting Jonny Rotten in 1976

“I wrote a one woman show called All The Rage and took it on a small tour. I realised that in the 20 years since then so much has happened – I’ve done over ten years on Loose Women – a lot has changed in my life – I’ve written new chapters for both books which are being republished and I’ve decided to do a new show – Off the Leash. From small arts venues to bigger theatres – it’s me on the stage sounding off about what makes me happy and perhaps a longer list of what really p*****s me of.

"I got a taste for going on tour with the Loose Women tour when we did some really quite big venues. But it made me realise that I like going on tour and I like smaller venues so that I can really see the audience. With this tour we are doing arts centres and smaller theatres.”

She says that she will be talking about his ‘strange childhood’. “I didn’t realise just how bizarre it was until I started to investigate it."

Street-Porter was born in Brentford, Middlesex. She is the daughter of Stanley W. G. Bull, an electrical engineer who had served as a sergeant in the Royal Corps of Signals in the Second World War, and Cherry Cuff Ardern, who was Welsh and worked as a school dinner lady and in the civil service as a clerical assistant in a tax office. Her mother was still married to her first husband, George Ardern, at the time, and was not to marry Stanley Bull until 1954, hence Street-Porter's name being recorded as Arden in the birth records.

She spoke rarely with her mother, who she says, would hit them regularly and left home when she was 18.

"This show will be pretty cathartic for me- a deep dive into the subjects that can be hard to chat about truthfully on live television - from my tormented relationship with my mum to what really happens when a relationship runs out of steam. I'll be brutally honest about the highs and lows of a helterskelter life well lived. And it's not over yet.”

Street-Porter was in her second year studying architecture when she discovered journalism and it was where she met and married fellow student and photographer Tim Street-Porter. She quit the degree and got a job working on a fashion magazine although she says she never lost her love of architecture and we we speak she is looking forward to moving her London flay into the Barbican mainly because she loves the look of the building.

She as with Street-Porter until 1975 when she went on to marry Time Out editor Tony Elliott

“I will also be talking about my martial life which has been a bit like a Carry On film at times (Street-Porter has been married four times).”

By her early 20s, she was deputy fashion editor at the Daily Mail. Fast-forward a few years and she was presenting youth TV shows. By her 40s, she was a TV executive, commissioning groundbreaking shows such as comedy classic Red Dwarf. In her 50s, she became the editor of the Independent on Sunday.

She has won many accolades including being appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to journalism and broadcasting.

In the second half of the show Street-Porter takes questions from the audience. “People can ask me anything the like,” she says. “I don’t care what people ask me and it’s key part of the show.”

She says she loves live television and theatre because there is only so much you can prepare for unlike previous jobs she’s had.

"As a journalist and columnist you can edit yourself endlessly. As a TV presenter you are often reading a script someone else has written, as a producer you are creating a format which you then have to trust to other people. Hosting live television is great because you have to be fearless because you can’t go wrong and if they do you’ve got to get out of things gracefully and take the audience seriously.”

She may be 80 next year year but one thing is clear: “I’m not retiring yet." And I dare anyone to suggest otherwise.

‘Janet Street-Porter Off The Leash’ tour will be coming to Pocklington Arts Centre, Wednesday December 3, The Forum, Northallerton, Thusday December 4 , East Riding Theatre Beverley Tuesday March 31, 2026 and Halifax Playhouse Wednesday April 1, 2025