My dad was a civil servant, and my mum was a secretary.
I watch a lot of U.S. comedy, shows such as 'Eastbound & Down' and 'Veep.' I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her character in that show.
My desktop is really chaotic, and I'm always trying to work out where I am going to put all these ideas.
I love all Daphne du Maurier's stuff. And just enjoying period dramas, really... wanting to do something drastically different from 'Nighty Night', the chance to write very different language.
I do use a laptop, but I'm very technophobic. I've never downloaded anything. I've never bought anything on Amazon. I'm really ridiculous. I don't know what it is.
I think I am generally prone to exaggerating characters, taking them to a ridiculous extent. But you do also meet those people in real life who are just really awful.
If I claim I'm the opposite of my characters, then it'll just sound awful. But I tend to write the sort of things I'd never say because I'm not a very forceful person.
If I can laugh with people, it makes me feel safe with them. If I feel someone has no sense of humour, I find it really scary. I do it with the kids as well: put on stupid voices to lighten up the spirit or gee them along to do something.
The main thing is to believe writers know what their voices are, and if they are left alone, they will come through with something. There are a load of brilliant U.S. comedies: at the moment, I'm loving 'Girls.' People say the U.S. is more conservative; I think, actually, it is a bit looser here, but trends change.
As a child, I just found a lot of things quite difficult. I found school quite overwhelming. There were just too many people. I wish I could have gone to a school with about five people. And if I saw someone bullying someone else, for example - I don't mean because I'm a perfect person, because I'm really not - but I'd always be, 'Well, why?'
I do think, with people in comedy, you can have your time, as it were, and then you don't realise that it might have gone. I hope it hasn't for me. I think what I do is, I just... I just try to plough my own furrow, in a way.
I sometimes write in a cafe down the road from my house now because I feel guilty trying to work if I can hear them playing. I invariably end up sat in a corner, depressed, retreating into my own world.
I'm quite tactful, actually. I worry about whether people are all right. With my friends, obviously, conversations are quite free and uncensored, but I would never enjoy making someone feel uncomfortable at all.
My grandfather was a vicar, and there was quite a lot of churchgoing when I was growing up. It's a world that I spent a lot of time around.
