Daytime double act

One of the more exciting revelations in Richard and Judy's longawaited autobiography is that Judy's favourite play is Hamlet. "Probably because, like him, I find making decisions very difficult. One of the reasons I hate shopping is that I can never decide what to buy - or, for that matter, what to cook." It's this kind of ever so slightly strange homespun earnestness that's won Judy and her gaffe-prone husband Richard a place in the hearts and living rooms of Britain's daytime TV viewers.

Since launching This Morning in 1988, the couple personified the friendly, unchallenging comfort zone that starts after the pyrotechnics of Kilroy and Trisha have sputtered out. Cheery and reassuring, they seemed made for the job. Best of all, they were genuine, and the experience of watching mindless lifestyle padding was somehow sanctified. If they believed it, so could you.

We became familiar with their foibles, their gentle wisdom and toothless tiffs. But was there more to them than met the eye? Deep down you suspected not, a view confirmed by their autobiography. It tells us little we didn't already know and lots we just didn't need to - that Judy was born in the year that footwear rationing ended, for instance. And that she loathes evaporated milk. That's about as sensational as it gets. It's an utterly uncompelling read, amiable yet tedious, strewn with wobbly devices intended to crank up the non-existent drama.

Each chapter (penned alternately by Richard and Judy) closes with a see-you-after-the-break cliffhanger, hushed and titillating. Richard signs off his first instalment with: "The move to Carlisle led to a career in broadcasting, my first marriage, and a dreadful blow that would coincide with my honeymoon." At the risk of spoiling the story, this was when Richard moved from the Brentwood Argus to local radio and married someone called Lynda before landing a job in TV where he met Judy.

She was also unhappily married, but their lives were transformed by "the incredible chemistry that first drew them together when they jointly presented Granada Reports", as the dust jacket puts it. Let the Hollywood bidding war begin.

The smallest detail becomes major incident. When he first arrived in Carlisle, Richard remembers how he found it hard to find any peanut butter.

"'F*** me, what have I come to?' I thought as I left the shop." Another strategy is the mad literary embellishment of Richard's chapters (apart from her Hamlet comment and the odd Beatles tribute, Judy keeps her prose pretty uncluttered).

He prefaces his epic account of the time he was accused of pilfering booze from Tesco's in Didsbury with lines from Edith Sitwell's The Queens and the Hive: "Doom speaks to us sometimes, with the hum of a gnat. We hardly feel the prick that is no sharper than that of a pin; but it ushers in Eternity." Judy chips in: "We have a very real understanding now of John Lennon's phrase: 'Life is what happens when you're making other plans.'" If it's just about worth saying once, you can bet you'll hear it twice. The dual narration idea might have been interesting had Richard and Judy told different parts of their story, or had varying perspectives. But they don't.

So, not only is the book double its proper length, it's also rather unnerving. Hasn't Richard baked that tuna casserole already? Surely Judy's had that baby? They claim not to have read each other's chapters as a "mutual act of faith". But it might have been a good idea.

Still, it's hard not to warm to them, however tricky they seem to try and make it. As their solo ventures have shown, they're an unbeatable double act, conventional by definition. Perfect for daytime TV, perhaps, but hardly unputdownable.