My mum is bright, ambitious, well read, political and very bolshie: when my dad was conscripted into the Army and posted to Libya, she convinced some general to let her go with him. I don't know how she managed it.

The funny thing is, I don't actually think of myself as fat at all. I don't think I am. Not really.

I think it's difficult, if you're a quite private person like I am, to write about your life very intimately.

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.

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 think my comedy, the put-downs I do to hecklers, are the accumulated bitterness of years of people feeling that it's perfectly acceptable to make a comment on your appearance when they don't even know you.

There have been some very extreme hecklers in audiences whose bile was so hateful and so meant that it would be a bit frightening to think that all I'm doing is jokes and yet someone hates me that much.