Mel Giedroyc claims pal Sue Perkins was groped by Orville the Duck on Light Lunch
Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins co-presented Channel 4's Light Lunch and Mel has claimed ventriloquist Keith Harris groped her with his puppet Orville the Duck during an appearance.
Mel Giedroyc claims her co-presenting partner Sue Perkins was groped by Keith Harris' puppet Orville the Duck on an episode of Light Lunch.
The duo co-hosted the Channel 4 lunchtime chat show when the alleged incident occurred in 1997 when the puppeteer and children's entertainer Harris - who died in 2015 aged 67 - appeared on the programme with his nappy wearing, green duckling.
Mel, 57, told comedians Rob Beckett, 39, and Josh Widdicombe, 42, on a recent episode of the Parenting Hell podcast: "We’re back in the Naughty nineties - woof! Weren’t they naughty - they were a very naughty decade.
"It was the '90s, there was a lot going down - it should have been called Heavy Lunch
“The most memorable of all the lunches, we had three puppeteers with their puppets for lunch. We had Keith Harris with Orville, who got a bit naughty with Sue! Well, Orville did.”
“Yes. Harris via Orville got a bit ‘Naughty Nineties.’”
The revelation prompted Parenting Hell podcast co-host Rob to ask: "Of course you forget there's a hand in there."
Mel replied: "There's a ruddy hand."
Rob's podcast co-presenter Josh added: "They'd get away with it by claiming it was a grey area."
Agreeing, Mel said: "Exactly."
Rob added: "It is not a grey area. It's a hand in a beak. Get off my t**!"
Keith was joined on the episode by fellow puppeteers Roger De Courcey, 80, with Nookie Bear and Matthew Corbett, 77, with Sooty.
Mel says there was a tension on set due to a professional rivalry between Roger and Matthew because the latter didn't believe the children's TV star was a proper ventriloquist like himself and Keith who did live shows and could also entertain adults with their antics.
And Mel says all three wanted to flirt with Sue.
She shared: "Then we had Roger de Courcey with Nookie Bear who used to work a bit of blue material - they were a little bit late night - and we had Matthew Corbett plus Sooty.
"I had a strong sensation that Roger de Courcey didn't like Matthew Corbett very much because he felt that Corbett's puppeteering was not the full deck.
"So there was real animosity round the table. There was a frosty atmosphere round the table. Harris is in the middle of it all over Perks' grill.
"She was the honey trap, I was just the fly kind of buzzing round the edge rather desperately. They bloomin' loved Perks, all of them."
Mel and Sue have fond memories of Light Lunch - which began in 1997 and ended in 1999.
This included the time when Mel snogged the programme's runner - a then unknown Dermot O'Leary, 52, who currently presents ITV1's This Morning alongside Alison Hammond, 50.
Mel and Sue, 55, also went on to present The Great British Bake Off on the BBC from 2010 until 2016 before it moved to Channel 4 in 2017.
