I went on the pill when I was 16, put on four stone… so that proved to be a very effective contraceptive.
There’s a general sense that women are more relaxed and less defensive in comedy than they used to be. I think it’s easier than it was but underlying it all there is still a pretty sexist view of women on stage, which to me hasn’t changed that much.
I had always fancied a go at the comedy and when it started to go reasonably well and the opportunity arose for me to move into it full time, I just couldn’t turn it down. I just took the risk, and I just wanted to see if it would work and thankfully it did.
I think there’s a danger that we’re moving towards a state where the people we are expected to admire are almost not human anymore, and I don’t like that. I prefer it when someone looks like a nice person, and you think, ‘I could have a laugh with them in the pub.’
I like to read my diary occasionally to remind myself what a miserable, alienated old sod I used to be.
Managers of hospitals over the years have been increasingly recruited from outside the health service, and although their experience of running a supermarket chain might allow them to balance the books, it does not mean they have any insight into how a ward should be managed and patients best served.
You look across the board at comedy quiz shows, and they are mainly hosted by men.
I find it difficult to judge myself, but people say that I have become a bit more socially acceptable over the years in terms of my material; which apparently at the beginning – though I never really intended it to be – was man hating and now is just a bit more cuddly.
Madness isn’t altogether a bad thing in comedy.
My personal opinion is that you can’t be racist towards white people. You can be prejudiced about them, but being prejudiced isn’t an illegal act, whereas being racist can be.
I’ve no interest in fashion, shoes, handbags, or sweaty shopping.
My dad’s a very sensitive man, but as the archetypal rebellious teenager, I didn’t realise that.
I like to shock people.
The comedian sticks as religiously to her theme as a dancer sticks to a diet.
Who do I like? I am a big fan of French and Saunders – not that that they are particularly stand-up I have to say, but I think they have been great for women and they are of themselves just incredibly funny whether they are male or female.
It’s got too much hard work slapping them and telling them to shut up.
So, I kind of rather was hoping that people thought it would have a nice mixture of different topics and it also takes in the fact that I’ve had two children recently.
As the Tories know, the problem with setting yourself up as a shining example for others to follow is that when you get caught out, that proverbial substance really hits the fan.
When I was at school you got an overall general education on many things, even just basic facts.
Most of us manage the fateful things that happen in our lives the best we can, certainly not to a Stalin-like 20-year plan.
I have big friends who won’t go swimming because they’re too embarrassed about it. I feel that’s such a shame, because actually people should be encouraging fat people who are exercising to do it, not pointing and laughing.
Again, with two small children it’s incredibly hard to commit yourself to anything because you’re just getting interested in it and someone comes along and goes I want Thomas The Tank Engine on, and screams the place down until you put it on.
When you get to know someone, you find there’s something nasty in their woodshed.
I’m not a flag waver for obesity. It’s not healthy, and you have a crap life because there is such a downer on it.
I was really, because I thought it was extremely excruciating when I watched a tape of it, that my husband taped for me and I never watched it again after that.
I often tell audiences at the start of my shows that I’m not gay because I’ve got petitions from lesbian groups saying ‘Can you tell people you’re heterosexual because you’re giving us a bad name.’
If you’re a fat person – and especially if you’re a woman – at all stages of your life you’ll get abuse for it, so you have to work out a way of dealing with it. The best way is to be humorous about it – that defuses any tension.
In the end, punk inevitably burned itself out and acted as a bridge across which the New Romantics could sashay in their chiffon and glossy hair.
With proper acting, I don’t know what I would play – I got sent a script for a play, and it said in the notes that my proposed character was ‘hideously fat and ugly’. That made my day. I mean, I do know I am no oil painting.
Not many women will go out on a limb to make themselves really unattractive and unfeminine so you can get the laughs, but it’s a great thing to do in my book.
I was always being called upon to be an honorary boy alongside my brothers. I don’t think I’d be a comic now if it hadn’t been for that.
Everyone in comedy thinks if you go to the U.S. you become a global star but, unfortunately, I’ve always been a bit anti-American – so I never did.
I thought I was funny as a kid.
How do you conduct an intimate relationship where no one ever loses it? Where no one ever lashes out, where no one ever smacks anyone in the mouth?
I’m a real Kentish maid, you know.
I never ever take into consideration the consequences of my actions until it’s too late.
I’m not really a churchy person, although I do think Jesus was a good bloke.
I think actors go along a continuum from Simon Callow down to kind of Ross Kemp, and I like to think of myself as the Ross Kemp of comedy. He’s very good in ‘East Enders’ because he plays a version of himself. I think I can play a version of myself – that’s about all I can do.
I read that book ‘Fat is a Feminist Issue’, got a bit desperate halfway through and ate it.
I wouldn’t say I was organised at all. I just have to prioritise. Is it more important for them to be organised, or to have their dinner, do you know what I mean?
People are so different in reality from the picture created of them on TV. So it’s all a creation; everything is made up.
I tend to think the world is a bit of a miserable place, so anyone who can add to people’s optimistic, cheerful side is doing a good job, which is what I hope I’m doing.
I have two brothers and we basically spent our lives playing in the woods, falling in ponds, getting chased by wasps and riding donkeys that we shouldn’t have been riding.
I’d love to live in Kent but it’s all a question of work.
Occasionally, some sitcoms still stereotype women – the old dragon or the dolly bird – but on the whole we’ve moved away from that.
I used to get a lot of people saying ‘Oh, you are such a lucky granny.’ But the fact of the matter is you can be a grandma at 35 these days.
I love everything about books. I love the content, the way they look and even the lovely way they smell. I think a book collection says something about you as a person, and certainly my books are something I’d want to pass on for future generations.
The problem with comedy audiences – it’s like the Coliseum – when they see someone struggling, they don’t feel altruistic towards them. They feel slightly repulsed by it.
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