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.

People can forgive each other.

One of the guys that used to run it - for some reason I've no idea why he used to call me the Sea Monster and I was just looking around for a name and thought that'll do. That lasted for a couple of years probably.

I wasn't one of those hideous children who make their parents sit through hour-long performances when you're seven. I didn't do anything like that thankfully.

I think a lot of women are incredibly tough and they're just really admirable. Especially the way that, given what they've got, they just manage to carry on.

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.

Regular panelists on shows can be terrifying. They own that space, and many guest comics suspect they are favoured in the edit, while their own hilarious jokes end up being ejected into the ether.