I have such admiration for single mothers. I simply don't comprehend how you'd cope with that intensity, the lack of breaks, ever, on your own.

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.

As a comic and as a nurse, it's important to look calm on the surface when you're absolutely crapping yourself inside. So, if someone is waving a machete at you, which has happened to me when I was a nurse, it's important to make that person feel that you're in control.

When you get to know someone, you find there's something nasty in their woodshed.

Having children is fab. They keep me young and make me get up in the morning.

So, my style has hopefully changed over the years and it is more relaxed, and I do tend to smile and have more than one expression these days hopefully - which I didn't at the beginning.

Even when I wasn't overweight I was never one of those girls or women who wanted to look nice. I always thought it wasn't important.