Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Comedy, surprisingly for a form that intends to bring joy and joviality, is always upsetting people. Jokes rely on broad strokes, stereotypes, caricatures, exaggerations and simplifications.
The Apollo seats 3,600 people: I could hear them making a huge noise for Milton Jones and Lee Mack. If the audience doesn't make the same amount of noise for you, you feel like you've failed.
We're all diminished and restricted by sweeping statements defining boy and girl, our expectations and disappointments with ourselves, the way we look, what we enjoy, and the choices we make.
Regency literature was too coal-y for me, too long-winded and describey. I preferred modern books where you had to read other books explaining what the first book meant to know what happened.
If we accept ourselves as animals, and have empathy and tolerance, compassion to others, understand that humans are territorial, aggressive and have gender aspects, then we can change things.
Skinniness is a new fashion. It reflects an obsession with youth, a suggestion of pre-adolescence when a female's fertility can be dominated. It implies vulnerability, feebleness and fragility.
Bodies have a sex, but gender is a thing we made up, like your star sign or nationality. It doesn't really say anything about who you are. The destruction of gender binary would free everybody.
If a bright-coated fundraiser was hassling a confused pensioner in the street, people would see, some hero would intervene. But it's happening in living rooms on landlines, and it will continue.
That's the thing: when I listen on public transport, my headphones act as a separator - a wired barrier between me and the nearest people. Yet my podcasts drag me through the depths of human nature.
Orange Is the New Black' is the womanliest TV show that has ever existed. It doesn't merely pass the Bechdel test, it gets all As and goes straight to Oxbridge, even though it's only three years old.
My earliest food memory is being starving hungry after swimming. I think that's quite common with children: the second you're out of the water you want to have a Twix, a cup of tea and chips and salty stuff.
Pride and Prejudice' is set in the early 19th century. At that time, women had the legal status of children. A daughter was the property of her father until marriage, when her ownership passed to her husband.
I've been an actor since I was 18. So that's my proper job. But I was not a very successful actor, if you consider being able to afford your rent successful. I did lots of old people's tours; reminiscence tours.
I wore a padded bra every single day and night from the age of 14 until I was 31. Giving up padding was my New Year's resolution. I had known for ages that wearing a stuffed bra was a form of hiding my real body.
The cliche of call-centre work is that it's mainly older people who will stay on the line to talk to you. Whether through loneliness or good manners, they tend to allow you to finish your sentences, hear you out.
I'm proud that I can do that material in a club gig where a lot of people think Page 3's a bit of fun and you're the feminist with the problem. It's always funnier to say: this is my opinion, look how we disagree.
Even quicker than the development of super-technology is the human adaptation to taking it for granted. We live in a world where regular people converse publicly with an inanimate object and escape Bedlam or a dunking.
When I go back to Essex, where I grew up, I'm still appalled by the homophobia and casual racism and aggression. I live in Lewisham, in south London, and though it might look a bit rough, it's a diverse, friendly neighbourhood.
When podcasts are in charge there will be no wars, just ears. That will probably be our motto, but in Latin. In our podcastian future, we'll comprehend that each story has another angle, every case a contradictory piece of evidence.
Growing older has helped me become empathetic to other people and their reasons for making choices. I used to think there was a definitive right and wrong and that only I knew what they were and so I should be dictator of the world.
When I was at university, I did essays on political theatre. And it was really frustrating that the ideas weren't reaching the people they were talking about. Standup is the one place where you are talking to every level of society.
When I was a child, I had an intense fear of going to prison. I wasn't on the run or anything - my crimes were small and they were all against fashion. But I had nightmares about accidentally killing someone, or being falsely accused.
If you view history as a backdrop, set-dressing or fiction, then 'Pride and Prejudice' is hugely entertaining. My reread saw the misery of the female characters' reality. My new reaction was sadness and fury. Knowledge ruins everything!
Extensive analysis was conducted before deciding whether consumers would respond better to a male or female imprisoned in their phone. Almost every country in the world had a female Siri programmed - but not, initially, in the UK and France.
I have never been to Ladies' Day at the Grand National. I've never been to any day there, truth be told, and unless they introduce a Scruffy People Who Believe Horse Racing to Be Deeply Cruel Day and pay me to attend I can't see that changing.
Many of my memories of my mum are of her in the bath with a book, utilising her limited spare time by simultaneously washing and studying. She left school with no qualifications and now has a PhD. If I seem like I am bragging about this, I am.
I wrote on my website that veganism isn't right for everyone and the first thing you have to consider is nutrition. I was saying that some use veganism as a form of eating disorder and that careful vegans replace what they cut out of their diet.
Culturally even, you have shows like 'Friends' or 'Sex in the City' that are imbibed along with like fairy stories, which are all about The One. Then we feel like we're looking for it, and if relationships end, what we've experienced isn't valid.
Worse than useless, I worry e-petitions are detrimental, with their sense of catharsis and mini-activism. Channelling away agitation, giving us the opportunity to show all our Facebook friends just exactly how great we are at being compassionate.
There's social media where people's politics are out there, they're forwarding articles and seem engaged, but it's only online. We tweet and pat ourselves on the back, thinking we have done something, said we're interested, but it needs more work.
With Netflix, we accept the democracy: not every show needs to be watched by everyone. And let's face it, we don't have time to watch everything. When will I sleep? I used to read and wash my hair. If TV gets any better, I'll have to give up work.
I don't feel like a very feminine woman sometimes. I feel manly. When I was in my twenties I would say I was a masculine girl and now I realise the whole idea of femaleness is a construct. I'm a boyish girl, who talks over people and I do a boyish job.
I hate how old people get in my way when I'm swimming. You're trying to get into the zone and normally, if there's someone faster than you, you get out of the way, but old people don't; they're like, you can go round me. I give a little tut when I pass them.
When you meet a new woman who does stand-up, it is instantly like, 'Yes! In the gang'. Because you know the logistics of the job: they travel a lot, it's lonely in dressing rooms, you know that they have bad gigs. That means they don't have to prove themselves to me.
It's interesting that reading, like listening to podcasts, is a lone pursuit, one where we keep our mouths shut and let someone else do the talking. Where we absorb rather than emit. By occasionally isolating ourselves, we can more successfully, more generously, socialise.
Much of the discussion around how people look at women focuses on culture, as if the media is entirely to blame. As if, without magazines and commenting hosts, we'd all suddenly dress in practical overalls and only judge a person on the quality of their charity work and poetry.
A show that I loved as a kid was 'Maid Marian And Her Merry Men'. It was a really strong female character making fun of the boys, an inversion of gender politics. But it was very funny, too. I always wanted to be one of the village people messing about in the mud and being stinky.
When I was a small child we were allowed to wait up until midnight on 31 December. Then as the TV chimed, Dad would run to the front door and open it, welcoming the New Year air. This is the kind of entertainment you make in poor families, and cry to your therapist about when you're rich.
The pancreas releases insulin to make you ready for fight or flight when you're scared. So if you don't fight or flight - if you stay onstage, telling jokes - then your body stores more fat in your tummy which makes you insulin resistant. All comedians have fat bellies, even if they exercise.
But with 'Newsrevue' I started doing some characters, and I just loved how you were in control. You could write something that day and go and do it that night, rather than waiting for a job that involves other people. So I did character stand-up, and then proper stand-up, and I loved it; I got addicted.
After an afternoon of interviewing Siri it turns out there are millions of questions that it can't or won't answer: How did you get my phone number? How many Siris are there? Did you have a Christmas party? Who is playing the tiny xylophone before and after each interaction? Are you spying on us, plotting the downfall of our species?