Terence Brady is famous as the actor/scriptwriter picked out as the superman whom aristocrat Charlotte Bingham thought was worth marrying.

Vivi Hardwick talks to one half of one of British television's best-known husband-and-wife-team.

THE queen of romantic fiction is poorly, so her husband is having to be even more of a superman than normal and conduct an interview single-handed. Terence Brady chuckles good-naturedly about the predicament of being married to Charlotte Bingham, who shot to fame as a 19-year-old by writing a book about searching for a real man among the aristocracy - Coronet Among The Weeds.

As the Baron of Clanmorris' daughter she then made the headlines by marrying actor/writer Brady, making him her superman.

At 64, he jokes: "Well, I'm a super old man. For some time I'd forgotten about all this, but approaching our 40th wedding anniversary (this week) we were looking through old press cuttings and we re-discovered the Charlotte Finds Her Superman headlines and the jokes that went on, and on and on. I think having kids helps. They take the mick so much. You tell them 'I used to be able to do the 100 yards in 10.5 and go around a golf course in 72' and they go 'oh yeah dad, really?"

The couple, who have a 36-year-old daughter Candida and a 30-year-old son, Matthew, achieved international fame as the screenwriters for some of TV's best-loved comedies and dramas such as Take Three Girls, Upstairs Downstairs, No Honestly!, Nanny, Thomas And Sarah and Pig In The Middle (in which Brady also starred). Together and working alone, Brady and Bingham have forged careers as writers across stage, screen, newspaper feature and bookshelf. Last year the pair captured the attention of the theatre world again with a masterful adaptation of Rosamunde Pilcher's best-seller The Shell Seekers, starring Stephanie Cole. The tour earned rave reviews at Darlington's Civic Theatre and next week plays Newcastle's Theatre Royal.

"We thought it was only going to be 'grey power' who'd want to see the play and although there are older theatre-goers, they bring younger relatives who think it's going to be boring, but by the interval they're in tears. Some are saying it's the best thing they've every seen."

Brady admits the production, with its theme of anticipated wealth from a family heirloom, was written "from blood" using his own family's experience of falling out over inheritance. With the Somerset-based couple now enjoying life in an eight-bedroom, four bathroom home with 25 acres of grounds, and a breeding stables, to some its strange that Brady and Bingham should continue to offer mainstream drama and comedy projects at a time when TV is still addicted to reality programmes, soap and bonkbusters.

"Someone asked me the other day if I'd ever want to stop and I said 'no, not while I'm enjoying it'. While we're still enjoying it we're determined to go on because we do love it." Brady admits that he longer fits in writing with 5.30am stable duties with his six current point-to-point and hunter chasers. "I was warned I was going to kill myself so I've learned to be very good at delegating," he jokes.

The couple had hoped to create new TV comedies for Felicity Kendal and Ronnie Corbett, but Kendal signed up for Rosemary And Thyme instead and Corbett proved to be "too specific. He's a great man and I love him dearly, but you have to tailor it absolutely right for him because he's more of a comic actor than an actor."

Following the success of The Shell Seekers, the drama's star Stephanie Cole is now working with Brady and Bingham on a project. "I think she's the best actress I've ever worked with. She's such a wonderful person and so funny. We're developing an idea for her which she's thrilled with and we're about to pounce on one of the TV companies.

"We might have to change our names and change Stephanie's name and pretend it's about someone who takes heroin.

"We had the same problem at first with The Shell Seekers. Lots of management wouldn't read it because they looked at the cast list and thought 'my God it's too big' and then they said 'it's an old-fashioned play because it talks about old-fashioned things'. The director, a lovely American, arrived and said 'ladies and gentleman, I want to put one thing to bed, this is not old-fashioned, it's a brand new play and it's a modern play.

"We feel the same about anything we write for television. We're not going to be able to write The Office, but we will be able to write things that are funny because I don't think that comedy changes. It's just the way you do them that alters.

"I've mostly abandoned the TV in disgust, but I watched The Office and I admired it tremendously, but it didn't really make me laugh, it made me very uncomfortable because it is the humour of discomfort. Charlotte and I were falling about watching Mad About You and Seinfeld which is the comedy that we love."

The couple did try their hand at raunchier screenplays and adapted Jilly Cooper's novels Riders and Polo. Only Riders, starring Michael Praed, was made with Polo suffering from constant re-writes depending on the nationality of the potential financiers.

"Once they were all Australian, then they were French and then English and I thought 'oh Christ' and eventually ended up with an international cast of characters.

"Riders was hysterical because I insisted on getting actors who rode. We auditioned actors at the Knightsbridge Barracks under the Master of the Horse. Guys turned up in things like cut-off jeans and sandals saying 'yeah, I can ride' and promptly fell off. The Master of the Horse gave them such a bollocking and said 'get out, you're wasting my time' and they all ran off, it was wonderful."

Hearing stories like that it's hardly surprising to learn that Brady has just finished work on a new farce called Anyone For Tennis? Hopefully it isn't about an Englishman winning Wimbledon.

* The Shell Seekers runs from Tuesday until Saturday at Newcastle's Theatre Royal. Box Office: 0870 905 5060

Published: 15/01/2004