Stacey Dooley

Full transcript

Home Again – Interview with Stacey Dooley

Introduction

Stacey Dooley: Home is where you feel safe. We sort of all wear masks, and we're all sort of busy, and we've all got lots going on, but when you shut that door and sit on your sofa, you should be able to feel completely content.

Matt: Hi, I'm Matt.

Ella: And I'm Ella, and you're listening to Home Again, a podcast by SpareRoom about the places we live. We ask our guests to pick three homes and tell us how they've shaped their lives.

Matt: And who's our guest today?

Ella: Our guest today is Stacey Dooley. Lots of people have seen her documentaries, Stacey Dooley Investigates, and also more recently, Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over.

Matt: She first kind of came to people's attention on the BBC documentary Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts. But since then, she's made dozens and dozens of just amazing documentaries.

Ella: Especially over the past week, I think we've both binged all of her shows. Apparently she's made over 90 documentaries. It's incredible, isn't it? But honestly, my reference to her is her winning Strictly Come Dancing.

Matt: Loved her on Strictly. Thought she was incredible. What a juxtaposition of roles to go from being an investigative journalist to also being a Strictly winner. Incredible. Such a wide range of stuff, and it'll make for a really cool conversation, I think.

Ella: Absolutely, I'm really excited.

Matt: And well done for saying investigative and getting it right, 'cause I really struggled with that word.

Ella: Hi, Stacey. Welcome.

Stacey Dooley: Listen, I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for having me.

Ella: We're so excited to have you. You know what? You're the guest that's caused the most commotion in the office when we told people you were coming on.

Stacey Dooley: Mate, well, I love to hear that. I absolutely love it when I walk in. I was just saying, this is very lux.

Matt: Let you in on a little secret. Miriam, who you just met in the control room, is going on holiday at lunchtime today, and she's come in this morning just to be here.

Stacey Dooley: Oh, Miriam! Where is Miriam? Which one's Miriam? Show yourself, Miriam. Hey, oh, great. Well, let's get a selfie. We must get a selfie before you go and have a very glamorous holiday. It's nice to see you both. Thanks for having me.

Ella: Super excited to talk about your three homes.

Stacey Dooley: Uh-huh.

Ella: But before we do, we want to ask a couple of quickfire questions to just get us in the mood.

Stacey Dooley: Okay.

Ella: The first one: tidy as you go or one big clean?

Stacey Dooley: Probably a mixture of the two. I am a bit sort of neurotic. If the house is upside down, my mind's all over the shop, so I try and keep on top of it as I'm going. But also, every Sunday, I'm like a manic, totally unreasonable lunatic who's like, "We need to order a skip and throw everything in this house out into the garden." So probably a mixture of the two.

Matt: And is that challenging with a kid in the house?

Stacey Dooley: Well, poor Minnie doesn't realise this, but sometimes I just throw her toys away. I don't throw them away; obviously, they sort of go into the pile where we give them to the charity shop. But she's got so much, you know? And sometimes I say to her, "Let's have a clear-out, and we'll sort of give some bits away, and then you can keep your favourite ones." And, in theory, she understands that that's a good thing to do. But then three items in, she's like, "I want this, I want to keep this, I want to keep this." So I just do it on the sly.

Matt: What is your home alone guilty pleasure?

Stacey Dooley: This isn't particularly rock and roll or unique, but I love being in bed, cup of tea, telly on—stunning. Window open, so there's a bit of a breeze. Stunning.

Ella: What are you watching?

Stacey Dooley: What am I watching? Well, I was watching At Home with the Furys. And then I was watching the Katie Price documentary. Seen it?

Ella: No, but I really want to. My mum messaged me about it: "You need to."

Stacey Dooley: It's actually brilliant. She is so honest, and all the archive's brilliant, and you hear from her siblings or whatever. I would recommend; it's great.

Ella: What's one thing you travel with that makes anywhere feel like home?

Stacey Dooley: Yorkshire teabags, Living Magazine...

Ella: Really?

Stacey Dooley: Yes. And overpriced headphones.

Matt: Sometimes I wear noise-canceling headphones just on the train.

Stacey Dooley: Yeah, I do get that. No music, just quietly letting everyone know that you're not to be talked to.

Ella: They're a bit more obvious, aren't they? I think I've got one of those faces where people stop and want to speak to me, ask for directions and stuff, and I'm like, they haven't seen that I've got my earphones in.

Stacey Dooley: Plugs in. Yes, yes, yes.

Matt: My niece has got some little earbuds that don't cancel noise, but they just reduce the volume of everything. And we discovered she was wearing them for a family Christmas lunch at one point.

Stacey Dooley: No, I get it. Listen, I understand that because we all love each other, but also you've been talking for seven hours, and that's quite enough.

Matt: Last one: host or guest?

Stacey Dooley: Host. I actually like having a house full. I like ordering in the flowers and making sure the table looks beautiful. I like hosting.

Home 1

Ella: Well, fab. Shall we move on to talking about your first home?

Stacey Dooley: Yes, let me talk about my nan's pub. I spent a lot of time here. She was a Scouse landlady, so all of the cliches that you're probably imagining, you're absolutely spot on. She was this kind of powerhouse, like a lairy, opinionated sweetheart, and everyone adored her.

And she had various different pubs, but the one that I really spent a lot of time in and have such a soft spot for is The City Arms. It doesn't exist anymore, but she's from Liverpool, and that pub was in Southampton. It was just amazing, actually. We had a great time there. She had another one in Portsmouth, and I spent a lot of time there as well. They were just brilliant memories, really.

Matt: And as a kid around that many people coming in and out, you must get to know the regulars. You must get to eavesdrop on conversations you wouldn't have been hearing as a kid at home.

Stacey Dooley: Totally. We would all stay upstairs, and then we would all have lock-ins. This was before my sister was born—my sister was born when I was seven—so I would've been five or six years old, at 1:00 AM downstairs with the adults, everyone smoking.

I'd be in charge of collecting the beer mats. I'd be cleaning out the ashtrays with a paintbrush, making sure all the Oranginas were facing the right way. But just some of the most brilliant times. They'd be playing Irish music, and it was just wonderful.

I know with nostalgia you sort of look at things through rose-tinted glasses anyway, but it was such a community. I know that's a bit of a buzzword, but it really was. It was like this whole gang coming together, drinking and just chatting, conversing, just storytellers. It was amazing; I absolutely loved it.

Ella: It's amazing. I think every pub has its locals everyone knows. I used to work in a pub, and there was a lovely woman called Pauline who would always pay with money that she'd take out of her shoe.

Stacey Dooley: Yes! You've got those characters. And all my family had pubs. My mum ran pubs, my uncle had pubs, and it was just the people that came in at the same time, 5:00 every evening. You grow so fond of them. There's a real rapport there, and then you're really invested in what they're up to day to day.

I would actually love to run a pub. It's hard graft, and I think realistically, am I going to do it? Probably not. I definitely romanticize the idea of it. Yeah, it's wicked.

Matt: You don't strike me as the kind of person who's afraid of hard graft.

Stacey Dooley: That is my one talent: even if I'm rubbish at something, I'll try really hard. The will is always there, you know? But changing the kegs and everything... also, it's sort of like you're the showman, aren't you?

If you're the landlady, it is a stage, and you sort of have to make sure that everybody's having a good time, the ambience is on point, and people want to come back. But it's a real shift. And also, if you do food, those kitchens are roasting, and everyone's kicking off that there isn't enough potatoes or gravy—it's full-on.

Ella: Do you think that's where your work ethic maybe comes from?

Stacey Dooley: Maybe. Ever since I was tiny, all the grown-ups, all the people that I love have worked very, very hard. So that might be where it stemmed from.

Matt: I think as a landlady, you've got to be able to talk to anybody. And that's clearly something that you're comfortable with.

Stacey Dooley: Yeah, that's a really good point, actually. I wonder if that's where it all started. But it's true, you can talk to anyone. And landladies are quite enigmatic. You sort of figure out their tone, and then you match that. Even if someone's scrapping or there's a fight that's kicked off, you know you have to be able to make sure that you can calm the situation down. So maybe that's where that's come from a bit.

Ella: And I bet your gran was, in a way, a bit of the heart of the community there.

Stacey Dooley: Totally, exactly right. Crazy Haze! My nan was called Hazel, and I called her Crazy Haze because she was such an icon, such a character. She would listen to Tina Turner 24 hours a day. She looked the business, had a ciggie on the go all the time—she was a vision, really.

And actually, when she had the pubs, when there were sailors coming in and out years before I was born, she was on Surprise Surprise with Cilla Black. The sailors rang up and were like, "Oh, make a fuss of this woman, she looks after us when we come home from sea."

Ella: No way! Have you seen the episode before?

Stacey Dooley: I have, actually, and it's such a slay. It's so great. She was magic.

Matt: So your mum's family is from Liverpool, your nan ran pubs on the South Coast, and you grew up in Luton, is that right?

Stacey Dooley: Exactly. We're all over the shop.

The reason we ended up in Luton was because they had a pub in Luton. She managed pubs all over the country: one in Brighton, one in Luton, and then my mum obviously followed her because she worked for my nan. Then she had me in Luton, and we sort of stayed in Luton.

Funnily enough, now I live in Liverpool, so it's gone full circle. When I had the baby, I was desperate to go to Liverpool, so we're there now.

Ella: Obviously, with your accent, you're a Luton girl through and through, but you have quite an affiliation with Scousers. You're a bit of an honorary Scouser at this point, I think.

Stacey Dooley: I would hope so! I just adore them. I know I'm bombarding you with clichés, but Scousers really are the best. London's brilliant, and I love the South—this is where I grew up—but I do feel at home in Liverpool. It's very bizarre. I feel more at home in Liverpool than I ever did in Luton, which sounds bonkers, doesn't it? Because I've only been there two and a half years.

Because it's my maternal side, I just love Liverpool. It felt like coming home, and I'm so pleased that my daughter will be brought up Scouse. I'm delighted to be surrounded by them day to day.

Ella: Do you think it's because you're connecting it with your nan and your mum?

Stacey Dooley: I think it's a mixture. Because of my mum and my nan, it feels very familiar, like part of who I am. But also whenever I go there, I've never met a bad Scouser.

I know there are all these lazy stereotypes, and people will be like, "Oh, have you had your car done over?" I don't subscribe to that, even in jest, because actually they are just the most decent people I've ever come across. I'll get off the train: "Hiya, love. Do you need help with..." They would never see you struggle with the buggy or the bags. I just love them; I'm team Scouse. I'm actually quite protective of them.

Matt: It's a funny thing, isn't it? They're almost like a separate nation within a nation—the way they see themselves and the way they are viewed from the outside.

Stacey Dooley: Sometimes they say, "We're Scouse, not British," or "We're Scouse, not English."

Actually, it was funny: I had the lads come over to get my wardrobe done, because I'm very highbrow and middle class now! I said, "Oh, have you got the football on?" because I love watching the football. They were like, "Nah, we don't watch England. We don't watch international games." That's so interesting. And they were like, "No, we're Scouse, not English."

I'm not saying everybody feels like that, but their identity is such an enormous part of who they are and what they believe.

Matt: And London doesn't really have that, which is in part what makes it amazing: it's a diverse, mixed, constant influx of people, constant change. That's what makes it exciting. But there is something about going—and Newcastle has a bit of that as well—just going to these places that, often weirdly, port towns, have this thing of, "We know who we are. You can't tell us who we are; we already know."

Stacey Dooley: Exactly right. And it's that sense of looking after one another, because there have been certain periods where communities haven't felt prioritized or listened to necessarily. So it's like, "Well, we'll look after our neighbors and each other, and you do you, and we'll do that."

Home 2

Matt: And so what's your second home? Where are we going next?

Stacey Dooley: The next one is a house I had in Lewisham, Southeast London. The only hassle was it was incredibly busy. I lived on a really busy road, and that got a bit boring after a while, just because there was so much going on all the time. I lived near Old Kent Road, which is 24/7. Which is fun for a bit, but then I'm creeping towards 40, and I've turned into this boring old lady, so I'm like, "Oh, I just want everything to be a bit more chill."

And also, trying to get a cab to take you home from the center of London—forget it! I would be saying to the cabbie, "Can I go to Drakefell Road?" And he'd be like, "Oh, I'm not going that way." I'd say, "Isn't the whole idea that I pay you, and then you take me to where I need to go?" But there was a hesitancy to go that far south across the bridge, which I get. It's probably a palaver with the traffic.

But it was a very special home. It's where I brought my baby back. I've got a little girl, Minnie, who's now three and a half, which is insane. She was conceived there—TMI—but also that's where we brought her home, you know? Those first few weeks are etched in my brain for obvious reasons, and the first six months of her life we were there. So it's a special place.

Matt: And it's funny 'cause she'll have no memory of that.

Stacey Dooley: She won't have a clue! Even now, she can't believe that she lived in London. Obviously we come up and down on the train, and she always just thinks she's lived in Liverpool. I say, "Oh baby, we lived in London, that's where you were born." She goes, "Really?" She can't believe it, because that's just where we go if we're going to see Paddington or the museum. She won't have a clue.

Ella: I imagine, obviously special that you had your daughter there, but it must have been a very transformative home. You were moving there, it was a busy street, everything was happening, you were living a lifestyle, and then all of a sudden you're becoming a mum and figuring that out.

Stacey Dooley: Totally. And you start thinking about the most random things, like air quality! It's 3:00 AM and I'm sat in my lovely little living room in Lewisham, googling what the air's like in Lewisham. Things that you weren't asked about prior to becoming a mum suddenly are massively on your radar.

I did a lot of growing. You're trying to figure out how to be a mum. At times that living room looked like we'd been done over, because neither of us had slept and there were energy drink cans everywhere, cups of tea, takeaways, dirty nappies, wipes, bras and jeans. We were living in absolute squalor 'cause it's just that survival period, I suppose.

Matt: Those first few months are a different world.

Stacey Dooley: It is. Have you got kids?

Matt: He's 13 now.

Stacey Dooley: Okay, so I'm sure you remember very clearly. It's next level. The first year is like, let me just survive; let's get through this. It was amazing, but bonkers.

Matt: Travelling so much for work and going to places that probably at first didn't feel particularly homely or welcoming or familiar, it must be very important to have somewhere that feels like a sanctuary to come back to.

Stacey Dooley: I think you're right. I travelled extensively. Which is such a luxury—no one wants to hear a C-list celeb moan about travelling—but I travelled probably from about 20 nonstop until I was about 32 or 33. So 12 or 13 years. What a treat, right?

North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia, Russia—I've seen most of the world, and that was glorious. But it's pretty bonkers staying in different places day to day.

When you become a mum, I'm probably less inclined to... well, practically as well; it's not practical. Sometimes when we're on tour in the UK, we drag her along. Actually, I'm sort of fibbing, because when she was eight months old, we went to America and I was filming in a brothel. I brought my eight-month-old daughter to this brothel in Nevada because she was still on the boob and I wasn't ready to leave her. I hadn't anticipated I still wouldn't be ready, and I'd signed the contract. So I ended up bringing Minnie to this brothel in Nevada, which was easier than it sounds, actually.

Generally, I don't travel as much. It was incredible, but to have somewhere to come home to and truly feel like you're not 'on', you're not staying next to your director, you're not sharing a place and having to get fully dressed to go for a wee at 3:00 AM—all of that feels like such a luxury.

Matt: Is it hard to decompress when you get back? Because it's not just the travel and being away, but it's the nature of the things you're in the middle of while you're there and the amount of stuff you take on.

Stacey Dooley: Yeah, sometimes the stories were pretty relentless. Again, I feel daft saying, "Oh, it's really hard," because obviously I'm just there to facilitate the people who are really going through something very real, to make them feel comfy enough to tell their story.

But it takes a few hours to park a 14- or 15-hour day, go back to a hotel that you're not familiar with, and compartmentalise all of that. You'd be talking about some really horrific, abhorrent situations, go to sleep, and get up and do it all again. Ultimately, though, it was a huge privilege that I was able to meet those people.

Matt: I was reading a story the other day—it's entirely different circumstances, but about Bono from U2 being off on these world tours that would last for two years, living in hotels. And then he'd get back to Dublin, and his wife would say, "Right, stay in a hotel for a week. Come round for dinner, come around for lunch, but just so you can work out how to live like a normal human again."

Because it was so full-on, and the world revolved around you, and then you come home and it doesn't. You're less important than the dishwasher.

Stacey Dooley: Sure. Those kinds of anecdotes are interesting, aren't they? I'm obviously not Bono, and I'm obviously not an A-list star, but I do think sometimes you need a couple of days just to get back into the swing of things.

If you've been working in telly and making documentaries, it's all been very exciting, you have people planning the trips, and you don't really have to worry about anything. Then you get home, and it's like, "Oh, I've got to do the food shop." It's like, "What do you mean? Where's my Padiams?"

We all live in this kind of bubble when you work in TV. Less so with the documentaries, but if you've been doing entertainment-y stuff, you're sort of used to having a really lovely runner bring you your breakfast. So I can totally understand how she would have reached that conclusion.

Ella: And that's probably something that's of benefit with Kevin. He's also in that world, so you don't have the circumstance of both off doing things, coming back, and appreciating that downtime.

Stacey Dooley: Exactly right. Interestingly, when we were in Lewisham, in that house in Brockley, I had the baby, and then two weeks after, Kev went on a 10-month tour.

Matt: No way!

Ella: Gosh.

Stacey Dooley: I remember him leaving and me just thinking, "What on earth am I going to do?" He was on tour for 10 months. He was doing a role that he'd always dreamt of doing, Strictly Ballroom, so it was right for him to do it. But he'd signed the contract prior to the baby coming.

It is mad when you're both away for such long periods of time, and then you come home and you're like, "Oh yeah, this is what we have to do. And also, we have to run a house because we're adults."

Which Kev still doesn't really understand, because he hates the idea of doing the big shop. He's like... I'm like, "We've got to go to M&S." He's like, "Oh, I can't bear it." I'm like, "Kev, I don't love it, but we're adults and we have to buy food so we can eat, so that's just the gig. That's just what we have to do, I'm afraid." And he's huffing and puffing down every aisle.

But it is lovely to have a home that you really love, because when you've done the last show on a Saturday, you think, "Oh, I can go back into my own bed, have my own bath, got all my bits," you know?

Matt: And then you end up taking a gig that means you're both touring together, so you're taking the home on the road.

Stacey Dooley: We did that last year. We did 2:22. I'd done it in the West End, loved it, had the best time, and fell in love with Donna Air. Do you remember Donna Air?

Matt: Yeah.

Stacey Dooley: Donna Air is this babe from the '90s, and she is such a dream, so funny and beautiful. We were in this play together last year, and I just fell madly in love with Donna Air—I had a summer fling with Donna Air!

So anyway, I had done it in town, loved it, and then Kev and I did it on tour. That was four months with Shvorne and Grant, and the four of us were a really lovely gang.

But it's a different pace touring, staying in different digs every week. You can only gauge what a room or a flat is like from the photos online. So sometimes you get there and think, "Oh, this is lovely, we're going to have a great week here in Buxton." And then you get to another week and you'd be like, "Fucking photos were not representative of what this flat looks like!"

You can't be too precious, really. And also, you're on a budget—you've got a touring budget, so you don't want to be spending silly amounts of money on accommodation, because then it's not worth doing the gig. So that was interesting.

Matt: And Minnie was travelling with you for all of that?

Stacey Dooley: Yes, and grandparents—my mum or Kev's folks week to week. It was amazing and we were so lucky we got the support, but it was four months, every week in a different town.

Geographically, it didn't really make sense. It wasn't like we started in Edinburgh and made our way down, or started in Margate and made our way up. It'd be like Glasgow, Bristol, Dagenham, Newcastle! We were just all over the shop. But again, what are you going to do, moan about working?

Matt: I know a lot of actors, and it's not about what's most convenient; it's who's got a week free here and who's got a week to fill there.

Stacey Dooley: Exactly right: the theater's availability and the actor's availability. Touring was very different to staying in a nice flat in the West End for three months.

Ella: Do you thrive on that energy of moving around quite a lot? You strike me as someone who likes to be cosy, with a cup of tea.

Stacey Dooley: Exactly right. From my 20s to early 30s, I was very nomadic, very chill, nonchalant. Now, I want to be in my home—and I've got a nice home, do you know what I mean? In my home, cup of tea, toast, Netflix—stunning. I'm very dull now, painfully dull, and that feels more appealing now, to be honest.

Matt: And is that home the third one we're going to talk about?

Home 3

Stacey Dooley: I'm absolutely in love with my current home. I live in Liverpool, and it is the most beautiful home. I still walk around and honestly can't believe it's mine. It's lovely. I have got the loveliest home, and I feel so lucky and proud. I cannot believe that I get to raise my baby in this home. It's 10 out of 10.

Ella: I've seen pictures of it on your Instagram. It's gorgeous.

Stacey Dooley: I'm so lucky. It's like a museum. I just walk around, look at it, and think, "This place is utterly stunning."

When I went to view it, the owners, Alicia and Baz, were such a lovely couple with a beautiful family. They'd lived there for years and years, and you could see how much they adored it. She left it in such a beautiful state that I really didn't have to do much.

I remember Kev saying to me, "Don't be obvious. Don't be too desperate. When you walk up, don't act like you love it." And as soon as she opened the door, I was like, "I love it!" He was like, "Oh, Jesus!" You want to play your cards close to your chest, but as I was walking around, I was just thinking, "I need to buy this house."

So I put an offer in, and it all worked out. I actually think there was another girl who was an actor—I think she was on Call the Midwife—who wanted the house as well, so the pair of us were in this battle trying to get this house as quickly as possible. But I'm just so happy when I'm there; I feel very calm. Front door's open, windows are open, radio's on, Magic is on—because as we know, I'm approaching 40—just making a bit of dinner. It's lovely.

Ella: And this is the place that you moved to from your Lewisham home?

Stacey Dooley: Exactly right.

Ella: Was it always the plan to end up back here in Liverpool?

Stacey Dooley: It was very spontaneous, actually. My favourite pastime is looking at The Modern House or Inigo—all these lofty, fancy real estate websites. I just sit there and think, "I'll just have a look."

Ella: Just window shopping, imagining your life in all of these crazy houses...

Stacey Dooley: And I'm like, "If I had 15 million to spend, what would I get?" Then I'm like, "The kitchen's awful, I wouldn't get that," as if there's ever a universe where I could actually buy that property!

But I found this house and was like, "Oh my God, that is beautiful." And obviously I'm reasonably familiar with Liverpool, so I thought, "I think I know where that is."

Then I was up there filming for work. I think I was up there doing a voiceover with Ricky Tomlinson, who is a total gem. Do you know who Ricky Tomlinson is?

Ella: No.

Stacey Dooley: Sorry, such a millennial! People use that as a slur now, don't they?

Matt: As Gen X, getting called a boomer is the worst thing that can happen to you.

Stacey Dooley: I am a really uncool, try-hard millennial. My makeup artist, Beau, was doing an American pop star who's 20, and they were like, "Oh my God, that's so millennial." I was like, "Can you keep your voice down?"

But yeah, Ricky Tomlinson—The Royle Family, did you ever see that?

Ella: Yes.

Stacey Dooley: So he's the dad. "My arse!" I've always been a massive fan. So he was doing voiceover for us, which is why I was up there, and I went to look at this house.

It wasn't a very sensible, thought-through plan. It was more like, "I want this house, let me do it." And Kev's such a good sport. Everyone's like, "You're moving from London to Liverpool?" I said, "Yeah." They were like, "How long have you thought about this?" I said, "Decided last week."

Kev's chill with that. If I said to Kev tomorrow, "We're moving to the Isle of Skye," I think he would actually just move to the Isle of Skye.

Matt: Have you thought about testing that just in case?

Stacey Dooley: I think it's because he's always on tour anyway, so it doesn't matter too much. It's not like he has to be somewhere specific for work.

Matt: And he's Northern anyway, right?

Stacey Dooley: Yeah, my boyfriend is from Grimsby. He's the other side, but he is very Northern. So we literally just did it.

Then all my mates were like, "You're moving to Liverpool? How's that going to work with work and meetings and stuff?" I said, "Oh, I'll figure it out." Even the mortgage guy was like, "How are you going to earn money to pay your mortgage?" I said, "I'm moving to Liverpool, I'm not moving to Mars!"

I do think sometimes there's a Southern element of snobbery: "Oh, you're leaving London, you're never going to work again," or "All the opportunities are down here." I don't really think that's true anymore, especially being so close to Manchester, which is like London.

So yeah, very happy there. I can't imagine being back down here now. You never know what's going to happen, and I'm quite loose with long-term plans, but I can't imagine not living there for the time being. And Minnie will go to school there, so once you've settled on a school, you're anchored down for a bit anyway, aren't you?

Matt: Does Liverpool feel like coming home in a strange sort of way, despite not having lived there before?

Stacey Dooley: It absolutely did. This feels quite poetic, but when I had only been there a few months, I did a gig up there. The guy there was very sweet and had this Liver Bird badge. He took it off and said, "Stacey, you're up here now, you're loving it. Welcome."

He took his little badge off—it was like some kind of understated ceremony—and said, "This is for you. This is the Liver Birds: Bella and Bertie. One looks out to sea to look after the sailors, and the other looks towards the town to look after the residents." It was so poignant. I was like, "Mate, thank you so much." I got back and was looking at my little Liver Bird pin. It definitely feels like I've come home.

Matt: I don't think there's anything as powerful as feeling like you belong, whether that's a group of people, a place, or a family. You know when you feel it, and it's one of the best things in the world.

Stacey Dooley: Ultimately, that's what we're all after. On a basic level, you're loyal to a football team because everybody that you sit with every Saturday is on the same page. It's why you join a choir, because everyone you sing with is singing off the same sheet.

Not to be too deep, but everybody wants to be loved, and everybody wants a sense of belonging. That's open to interpretation, but I do feel like I belong in Liverpool.

Matt: Having watched lots of your documentaries, a thread that emerges—which speaks to what you were saying about belonging—is this idea of however strange somebody may seem to you, or how much you might disagree with them from the outside, we've moved into a world that is so about putting people in boxes, with no discourse anymore.

It feels like what you're doing is taking these people who are outside of belonging and making us look at how they are also still somehow part of the same community as us, even though we might like to think they're not.

Stacey Dooley: It makes absolute sense, and I would echo everything you've just said. That's why I love making documentaries. You can sit with somebody who you fundamentally disagree with on many levels: you vote differently, read different papers, consume different podcasts, completely opposite ends of the political spectrum.

But there is always common ground. Particularly now, everything feels so tribal, like everything has got to be a quick top line or soundbite. We don't really explore the grey anymore. We've lost the ability to have a conversation with people who are different to us, and that can't be useful long-term.

I've spent time with people who vote Trump, are pro-guns, and always reference the Second Amendment. On paper, we should be clashing the entire time. But she's also a mum; I've seen her be very kind towards people when we've spent time together filming, and I understand that she has a different relationship with guns because the first place to give her a job when she was a single mum was a gun store.

You have to take things into consideration before you decide who a person is. I ultimately believe there are more good people than bad people. Having travelled as much as I have, I don't mind spending time with people that I don't understand.

Matt: We've become comfortable in our bubbles and our echo chambers. What I found most moving about so many of the documentaries is that rather than going, "This is what this looks like," you're walking around the outside of it and showing how it looks from all these different angles.

Stacey Dooley: I think you're right. And also, I've met people who are absolutely evil—people who have cut people's heads off or stuffed children with drugs. I've met people who have done such deplorable things. Anything that's not that, my tolerance level means I think, "I might not understand you or agree with you, but you're not evil." That's why I can hang out with people who are very different to me.

Ella: I have to ask about Sleeps Over. It's such a good series.

Stacey Dooley: God, I love Sleeps Over!

Ella: Going into people's homes is such a personal thing to do.

Stacey Dooley: It wouldn't be for everyone, because it's very immersive. The first question is always, "Is it legit? Do you genuinely stay there?" Hand on my heart, we arrive on Friday, leave on Monday, and I stay at their houses. We're about to start filming Series 7, so it's been really well-received.

People love being in people's homes. You're not meeting in a neutral space, so you look at that shelf and understand who that person is. You look at what's in their cupboard and see what their wardrobe looks like, their interior choices, things hanging on their wall that they deem to qualify for pride of place. It says a lot about them.

I'm so nosy anyway; I love looking at people's houses. When it was pitched to me, I was really up for it, but I didn't know if contributors would be on board, because it is very exposing. I never take it for granted when they say yes and open the doors.

I've spent time with people where we've had to have awkward conversations, but we've always left amicably—never been thrown out of a house!

Ella: Yet!

Stacey Dooley: Yet! It would be TV gold. But I do love Sleeps Over, it's really fun.

Matt: It must be fascinating seeing that number of houses and the little rules. One of the quickfire questions we ask a lot of people is "shoes on or off at home," and it's one of the first things that gives you a sense of what that house is like.

Stacey Dooley: It's got to be off! The problem is, people who really know me know it's off, but if people come round who I don't know so well and don't take them off, I don't want to say, "Can you take your shoes off?" because I don't want to seem highly strung. But inside I'm like, "You've been all over the Tube and now you're all over my house." Shoes off, surely.

Matt: Lots of Sleeps Over have been in the UK, but so many of your films are around the world. Are there threads of home that you see repeating in different places, even though they're seemingly really different?

Stacey Dooley: Yes. The UK version of Sleeps Over is a good example of all of us ultimately wanting to build a space where we feel comfy and proud. That looks different to different people.

Sometimes it's really glam, where everything's glass and immaculate. I've been to houses of multimillionaires who have cleaners 24/7, and everything is immaculate, and I've been to houses that are a bit more humble, but they've bloody worked hard for that home.

You have to get up to speed quite quickly with what's important to them. I stayed in a Mormon house where hot caffeine was an absolute no-no. Totally fair enough—it's their house. But I am a tea addict; I'm rattling if I don't have a cup of tea!

I had to be there Friday to Monday. On Saturday I woke up, and my head was banging. I had to leave the house, get the runner to bring a flask of hot tea, and I was downing this tea down the road outside the house just to make sure I could get through the rest of the day. Isn't that awful?

In another house with a throuple, there was a pig in the living room, and you had to make sure you weren't standing near the pig stuff.

There was a lady, Marie, on the outskirts of Birmingham, who loved animals and always had the back windows open. Random stray cats were flying through the window! I said, "Mate, what's this cat called?" She said, "I don't know, it's not mine." I said, "There's three in your living room and you don't know who they are?" She was very cavalier and chill, but I'm really allergic to cats! You don't want to say anything because it's her house.

Ultimately, everybody works to make a space work for them, and for Sleeps Over, you just have to slot in and come along for the ride.

At Marie's house with all those cats, I was lying on a blow-up bed next to a producer, Warren. Warren was barricading the door with suitcases to keep the cats out and shutting all the windows in 30-degree heat.

We did one in America with OnlyFans creators, and you can imagine the noise coming from that one-bedroom flat! I'm on the sofa next to a fish tank... You have to just lean into it, because it's completely mad. It's like, "This is what we're doing for the next 72 hours."

Matt: That's got to be different from Investigates, where you spend time with people but get to go back to a hotel and have a quiet moment. You must feel always 'on'.

Stacey Dooley: That's exactly the difference. On Sleeps Over, it's 1:00 AM, you want a glass of water, and you think, "Have they set the alarm? Is the alarm going to go off if I go downstairs? Are they going to think I'm snooping round?" Or you bump into them at 4:00 AM when you've both crossed paths. That slight awkwardness works well for telly.

Matt: It must be so hard, like making a wildlife documentary, where you're there to observe and find stuff out, but you can't intervene. It must be so tempting to try and help people, though in documenting it, you are massively helping.

Stacey Dooley: I'm lucky as a broadcaster with the tone of my career: I can do quite trivial, fun, daft things. I did a series once called This Is My House, where we'd turn up at a house with one legitimate homeowner and three actors, and they would all claim it was their house.

And then I've done Panoramas and very current affairs-based issues. Wherever you are, you have to act appropriately. I don't take myself seriously, but I take my job very, very seriously. Sometimes people have been through horrific circumstances, and it's my job to make sure they're given a platform to tell their story from their point of view, adhering to editorial policy and duty of care.

I like how varied it is. We're about to start Sleeps Over, which is lighter tonally, but then I've got three serious documentaries coming out. I've got one about ketamine, where I'm in a rehab clinic for four months. I've got one about a young woman who was treated appallingly in the army and she took her own life. And I'm doing a film about fallen women—ladies who have fallen to their deaths, often from a great height, and their families feel it was under suspicious circumstances, or domestic violence was a huge factor in their lives prior to the fall.

Then I have lovely informal chats like this, so I'm really lucky that I get to do a bit of everything.

Matt: That speaks to what you were talking about going back to the beginning: being a Scouse landlady, able to talk to anybody, read the room, and find a space within that.

Stacey Dooley: Exactly right, you've just got to try and read the room. Meet them where they are, hope that they'll let you in, and go from there.

Going to people's houses to interview them isn't lost on me. It's not normal for an entire film crew to come round to your home, and for most people, that will only happen once in their life. You have to make sure it's as pleasant an experience as possible. On the whole, everyone's really lovely, and the best conversations are sat round their kitchen table or on their sofa. It feels intimate, which I love.

Matt: Through all those homes you've been in and the places you've lived, has it left you with a clear sense of what home means to you?

Stacey Dooley: Yes. Home is where you feel safe. I know that sounds a bit earnest, but home should be where you feel safe and where you get to be your most authentic self. We all wear masks and we're all busy, but when you shut that door and sit on your sofa, you should be able to feel completely content. It's heartbreaking that some people don't feel like that.

I bloody love being at home. If you said to me, "Do you want to be anywhere in the world?" I would say, "At home, please."

Ella: That feels like a perfect note to end on. Thank you so much, it's been an absolute joy.

Stacey Dooley: Thank you both so much for your time, and good luck with this! It's such a great idea. Thank you very much.

Ella: Thank you.

Ending

Ella: Just spoken to Stacey Dooley!

Matt: I really enjoyed that. With everybody, you get a sense of who someone's going to be, and she was totally how you would expect her to be. But I also feel like we chatted about a load of stuff I haven't really heard her talk about before.

Ella: It was really interesting. I loved everything she said in relation to homes she'd been to through work and speaking to people with different opinions. I felt like I got a bit more of an insight into her.

Matt: And I loved the whole Scouse pub landlady nan story. You get a sense of her having been around people and able to speak to people in different situations from a young age.

Ella: That's what you know Stacey for: she's a people's princess, the girl next door. She asks the questions that you'd think to ask sat at home, and she tries to see the full picture to understand why people are the way they are.

Matt: It's that cliché that you can love anyone if you know their story, and she's probably the person who has put more people's stories in front of us to try and understand than anybody else in recent years. What a joy of a conversation.

Ella: She was fab.

Thanks so much to Stacey for being today's guest. You can catch her three brand new documentaries out on the BBC in autumn this year.

Matt: If you've enjoyed this episode, you can leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Come and find us on socials @homeagainpod and you can watch full episodes over on YouTube. But for now, I've been Matt...

Ella: And I've been Ella, and you've been listening to Home Again.

Matt: See you next time.

Ella: Bye!