And I also felt that no one in an audience could abuse me worse than the sort of abuse I had had at work as a psychiatric nurse.

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.

The comedian sticks as religiously to her theme as a dancer sticks to a diet.

There are comics who treat women fairly appallingly. But I can be great friends with them because I don't tend to do that ticking of boxes: it can make life too simplistic.

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.

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.

To me, a politician's job is to listen to constituents' problems and try to sort them out.