The cream of Lancashire: Anna Friel at a GQ magazine bash. Photograph: Gabriel Bouys
As we wait for Anna Friel's new television series Pushing Daisies (ITV), we can fill the empty hours by reflecting on a surprisingly neglected topic: the ethereal beauty of folk from Rochdale. For anyone unfamiliar with this jewel of the north, it is a town of indeterminate size on the damp side of the Pennines. Its size depends upon whether you regard Middleton as a part of Rochdale or not. (People from Middleton say not but, as it was once the home to Steve Coogan and Mike Harding, people from Middleton also think they are funny.) One thing is beyond debate, however: the shining good looks of our women.
Pushing Daisies is sweet, perhaps even syrupy, but undeniably addictive. Photographed by Barry Sonnenfeld in a garish palette that recalls his earlier Addams Family films, the drama is described as a "forensic fairytale". The fairytale element is supplied by the narrator, Jim Dale - who won the part for his work on the Harry Potter audio books, rather than Carry On Nurse.
Pushing Daisies is the story of childhood sweethearts whose death-defying love comes with a curse: if they ever touch, the girl will die (or die again: it is all quite complicated). Who but Anna Friel could play this deathless beauty, wringing our hearts with this look-but-don't-touch caveat? Who but someone else from Rochdale, perhaps?
Agyness Deyn, Britain's best dressed woman according to Tatler magazine, was born on Rochdale's gentle, rain-lashed eastern border, in the village of Littleborough, which we like to think of as our Siberia. The NME Awards last week showcased Deyn's ability to appear grounded yet serene as she handed ugly lumps of metal to drunken pop stars. This could be described as the signature of the Rochdale beauty: the talent for appearing to float just a little above the world.
There is much that one would want to float above in Rochdale, and no one manages it better than the reigning Queen, Rochdale's great diva, Lisa Stansfield. Whether she is singing at Ronnie Scott's or breaking Shane MacGowan's nose in a fist fight, Stansfield demonstrates the Rochdale woman's knack for mixing it up while, somehow, remaining above it all.
There are other beauties, too: actress Michelle Holmes, star of the greatest film ever made, Rita, Sue and Bob Too. And Ginny Buckley, one-time Sky newscaster and motoring correspondent. One might also include Lizzie Bardsley, star of Wife Swap, if only out of fear that she would come after you if she learnt she had been left off the list.
What about the men of Rochdale? My good looks speak for themselves, and I suspect Andy Kershaw's cherubic beauty proved a liability during his time in prison. But on the whole, Rochdale men are not lookers. In his forthcoming memoirs, Mark E Smith accurately describes us as outsize brutes with misshapen heads.
The relative plainness of Rochdale men compounds the mystery of our women. We all come from the same gene pool, and yet the men look like they only recently slithered out. I suspect the dazzling quality of Rochdale women is, in part, an act of will: Rochdale women literally think themselves gorgeous. For proof, we only have to look back to the first Rochdale goddess: Our Gracie. A huge star throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Gracie Fields was universally adored. Watching her films today, one can only assume she drove the whole nation to moments of mass delusion. Women of Rochdale: I salute you.
