Joanna Lumley, Roger Allam on Conversations from a Long Marriage, bad habits and Desert Island luxuries

Roger: "Probably a sense of humour. Laughing and giving each other room to be elsewhere and do things on your own or with other people, not having to be together all the time."

Joanna: "A sense of humour helps navigate life full-stop. But complementary personalities can be a symbiotic yin and yang in a marriage."

What is your best trait?

Roger: "It’s a form of torture answering this! What is my best trait? Probably my self-delusion that I look like Cary Grant, but my bad eyesight means I don’t notice that I don’t."

Joanna: "He’s a sensational actor, with one of the best voices you could hear and he’s heaven to work with."

Roger: "Joanna has so many good traits. Perhaps her unfailing courtesy to everyone she meets – and also her interest and curiosity about the world."

What is your worst trait?

Roger: "I can be bad-tempered sometimes. My worst trait is getting irritable when being interviewed about things!"

Joanna: "I seem to be a bit of a butterfly who flits from one thing to the next."

Roger: "Joanna’s worst trait? No idea. There’s not a list. It seems to me she undervalues her great skill as an actor."

How would you deal with a serious betrayal of trust?

Roger: "I don’t know. It would depend. I mean, the presence of this son, it’s not something that he’s kept hidden from her – it’s a huge surprise and shock for him as well. There’s huge anxiety on both sides about destabilising what is a long and happy marriage. If it was something really treacherous, if he’d known about the son but kept it secret, then I think it would be completely justified for her to walk out. I wouldn’t like to say if Joanna is like this in real life."

Joanna: "I think he’s more trustworthy than she is – she’s definitely more economical with the truth. But I don’t think either of [our characters] has ever done anything particularly bad – there’s been no infidelity, I am sure of it. She sands over her tracks, certainly."

Roger: "It would depend upon the nature of the betrayal. If it was something really cruel, that’s a different matter to if it’s something that happened when we weren’t together. That’s rather different."

What would be Joanna’s luxury item on Desert Island Discs?

Roger: "Oooh, I really don’t know. Gosh. Maybe she’d take her cleansing routine."

Joanna: "I’ve done Desert Island Discs twice so my luxuries are on the record, as it were. [They were a painting of her family and friends by the artist John Ward and the film, Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday.] As I imagine I’ve got those luxuries stashed on my island already, I’d take another film – but I don’t know what."

What would be Roger’s luxury item then?

Joanna: "I’d like to think he’d take me, but he wouldn’t. He might want to take his dog, but he wouldn’t be allowed. So, it would be something fantastically lazy like a big, comfortable chair with a huge screen with football on it. Or some good wine."

Roger: "Could I take a good cooker? A log-burning one. I do most of the cooking and I tend to listen to music when I’m doing it."

What’s your studio snack of choice?

Roger: "Joanna’s would be a carrot baton or a fingernail, I think."

Joanna: "Having been a model in the '60s, I can go a whole day without anything except a cup of builder’s tea. I don’t like eating in the studio and I don’t like eating at work. I don’t like someone eating while they’re on the phone to me and one of the reasons I don’t love going to the cinema is the general rustling, eating and slurping that goes on. I don’t know if you’ve noticed on Gogglebox, but they always seem to have food and drink in front of them and that seems very odd to me. I’ve been on Gogglebox, but that’s not the way I live. I don’t ever yearn for snacks."

Roger: "I try to avoid biscuits, but sometimes I fail, so if it was a biscuit, it would be a dark chocolate and stem ginger one."

Joanna: "Roger has to eat at certain times. He has to have his coffee at a certain time. He’s very regimented in that respect."

Who corpses the most?

Roger: "Oh, I think we’re tied on that really. I wouldn’t say one of us corpses more than the other."

Joanna: "Roger doesn’t really and I hardly ever do. We don’t have time – we do one episode in a morning and one in the afternoon so we must rattle along. Corpsing comes from the fear that you’re going to get it wrong, live, in the theatre. I like to think that we are both quite professional."

What’s your favourite scene?

Roger: "I can’t remember anything about the series. Joanna’s much better at this than me. You see, I can’t remember at all. It all goes out of my head.

"We meet for three days and do the whole thing. And it’s gone, you know. I love doing it, I love seeing everyone and it’s the most enormous fun, but I certainly don’t know what Joanna’s favourite scene might be. I can’t put my finger on one, I’m afraid. My finger is unavailable!"

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Conversations From a Long Marriage season 6 starts at 2:15pm on Monday 19th May on BBC Radio 4.

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