It kind of depresses me when people decide to move away. I get it, you want your kids to have somewhere to roam free or to recreate whatever your sort of childhood ideal was, but my kids are grand. I love LA because lifestyle wise, it's near the beach and mountains and it is great for kids but then it's a city built on an industry that, at the end of the day, is kind of facile.

I started writing sketches with Dennis Kelly, who I ended up writing 'Pulling' with. We entered a BBC competition and did quite well, then started writing bits for other people's shows. You wheedle your way in, write pilots and eventually you end up writing a sitcom.

You feel you can pretend to be young until you're 50, but after that, what happens and how do you approach it?

I despise shows that present friendship where you're always there for each other and really strong because I don't know anyone like that. I mean, I've got great friends, but I can go months without seeing them because I think, 'I just can't deal with having to give you anything.

Comedians... they're different from actors. There's more ego there. They create the whole thing, I guess, so they're more precious.

I think that there's an idea in 2016 that if a woman doesn't have it all then she's lacking in some way, and I think that 'having it all' is the kid, the relationship and the career, and that seems horribly skewed. I get genuinely excited when I meet women - or men - who don't want to have children. It's refreshing and unusual and means they're not swayed by what society has told them, they're just listening to their own basic instincts. I love meeting people who are fulfilled by other things. I think, 'lucky old you' when I meet someone single.

Comedy and drama are less ageist media for women than stuff like light entertainment. But in TV or film, women have to be more pleasing on the eye than men.