An hour in the pub with Nicola Coughlan nursing a Guinness is the tonic we didn’t know we needed during a festive season that has somehow spiralled out of control by 6 December. Booked and busy, the Bridgerton star, who signed up to host a pub quiz in The Kate Spade Arms (formerly The Exmouth Arms until the brand gave it a chintzy glow-up for Christmas), found time to share her personal holiday traditions which, quite honestly, made us fangirl over the actor, who is soon to play a woodland fairy in The Magic Faraway Tree, even more. We do not use that term lightly. But, when everyone is peak themselves and now sprinkled with diamanté, Coughlan, in a quiet corner of a quintessential London boozer, just gets it.
For starters, she has a drinks fridge in reserve at home, because it’s criminal not to have enough space to chill everyone’s preferred tipple during a party. Chez Coughlan, there is always a welcome beverage (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic), and there is always champagne on the go. If she’s being hosted, you’ll find a bottle of champagne in her bag. “I’ll never go to someone’s house empty- handed. Never. It’s rude – rude!” she quips. Hers, by the way, is a margarita, when she’s not sipping a pint of the black stuff.
Coughlan’s approach to gifting is just as thoughtful. Once her friend Camilla tweeted that she wanted Megan from Love Island to bring glad tidings and also some ham, so that’s what Nicola got her: Megan holding a plate of ham. “It took some serious planning, I would say,” she chuckles. The best present she’s ever received, meanwhile, is not one of the handbags bestowed upon Coughlan by doting brands queuing up to dress her, but the denim purse with pink fringing her sister bought a 12-year-old Nicola. Inside that Barbie dreamhouse of a coin holder was a ticket to see S Club 7. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that excited,” she recalls fondly.
