All hands on decks

Adele Roberts looks the business in a lilac two-piece suit, and when the photographer swings the monitor around so she can have a peek at the pictures taken so far, the radio presenter and DJ’s eyes suddenly swim with happy tears. “I can’t believe that’s me,” Adele beams, turning towards her fiancée, actress Kate Holderness.

This is Adele’s first bells-and-whistles magazine photoshoot, and she is excited but also understandably nervous, and beforehand asks if she can bring along her other half for moral support. Rifling through a rail of colourful (and expensive) designer garments, Adele notes that she normally shops at Primark and really only ever wears black.

“People like me don’t normally get experiences like this… northern, from a council estate, gay, you know,” she explains, when we gather, post-shoot, in the studio’s courtyard.

“Just wearing those amazing clothes, and you guys all being kind to me and helping me come out of my shell, it did make me want to cry. I was thinking, I don’t deserve to be wearing