Sue Perkins has revealed what The Great British Bake Off judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry are really like and how her partner has helped her with the sugar cravings she gets presenting the hit BBC show.

The 46-year-old, who hosts the popular baking contest with long-time comedy pal Mel Giedroyc, said that while Paul may come across as tough, he is really a sensitive soul, while getting to know Mary has been a bit like becoming friends with royalty.

Great British Bake Off judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry
Great British Bake Off judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry (Mark Bourdillon/BBC)

“I adore Paul Hollywood,” Sue admitted. “He’s a really sensitive, decent man, which doesn’t always come across on television, but he’s not been picked to judge Bake Off because he’s sensitive or funny, he’s been picked because he knows exactly what’s required in professional baking.

“Mary loves a tipple, but within reason. She’s hardly a drunk. She’s so demure. It’s like having the Queen as a mate. She’s a true lady.”

Sue has been known to put on weight during filming, but her partner, Channel 4 presenter and hypnotherapist Anna Richardson, has helped stem her sugar craving.

“She’s helped a lot, but weirdly, when I was regressed, I went back to my earliest memory of sugar and it was my mum pulling out a brown book and opening the page to Mary Berry’s lemon drizzle cake! Forty years later, I’m working with the good lady herself.”

Sue Perkins and Anna Richardson
Sue Perkins and Anna Richardson (Yui Mok/PA)

Sue and co-host Mel have been friends and comedy collaborators since they met at Cambridge University in 1988, and in the past they’ve admitted there were periods when they each envied what the other had.

Mel’s career took a back seat when she had children and she didn’t have the freedom Sue had to pursue other goals. Sue saw in her pal’s life the family she could never have, after finding out that she had a brain tumour which would stop her having children.

“We are able to look at one another’s lives and appreciate them without envy or speculation, but there can’t help but be a certain degree of wistfulness,” she said. “As I get older, I think, ‘What am I for and what is the purpose of life?’

Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc
Mel and Sue have been pals since 1988 (Mark Bourdillon/BBC/PA)

“As I see it, it’s not to constantly be on television. I love my job, but there needs to be something that runs parallel to that experience.

“I think about community and family, about whether I should foster or adopt, how I could do more to help those who aren’t as fortunate as I am.”

Sue Perkins memoir Spectacles, in which she talks about coming out as gay, her father’s battle with cancer and her mid-life crisis among other subjects, is published by Michael Joseph on October 8, priced £20.