No, sometimes we just have to take liberties because the idea was so good. I wish we'd just gone with the idea that Patsy had been a man. It would have been fantastic.

I grew up with a mother who, every time she saw something, would say, I'm going to look that up. And I've become that person - I've become the reference-book person.

No, sometimes we just have to take liberties because the idea was so good. I wish we'd just gone with the idea that Patsy had been a man. It would have been fantastic.

The reason they keep it so tight is that no one liked them, so that without each other, actually, they couldn't exist. They support each other. They support their flaws and everything else.

I think TV companies don't take as many risks any more, it's a bit more prescriptive. There are more channels but there seems to be actually less main network channel comedy. You can't offend people as easily, people take things very seriously now. I think that's down to social media though because people can have little tribes of offence.

It makes me a bit sad that, if anything, that people seem to want to go back to an old model of normality, and sitcoms seem to want to be about ordinary families and things that aren't very interesting. I just think it's a bit sad. It's a shame that life is still depicted in a very straight way.

People ask could I have written the show I wrote in 1990 now, and I don't think I could. I think it's much easier to offend people nowadays. People have grown quite sensitive, I think.