Kathy Burke

Kathy Burke: Letter to my younger self

When I look back to being a teenager the thing I remember most is the food.

Kathy Burke interview

We fell in love with Kathy Burke when she appeared on our screens as Waynetta Slob and Linda in Gimme Gimme Gimme. Now she's written a TV drama based on her 70s childhood that will steal hearts.

Kathy Burke's comedy, inspired by her teenage years, follows the wonderful short film about meeting The Clash as a teenager that she made in 2010. If her four-part series about 70s music, adolescent friendships and dreams has the same kind of charm - and everything suggests it will - it should be a delight.

Kathy Burke's appearance on I've Never Seen Star Wars did nothing to dispel that notion that she is a national treasure (and made me think how good she'd be with her own show, just playing stuff she likes and chatting to people).

As the title indicates, the show - shunted off for this fourth series to the railway siding, relatively speaking, of Radio 4 Extra - exposes its subject to new experiences, and it always makes for a jolly half-hour. The studio-bound format is slightly frustrating, though: Burke had never been to Harrods, and judging by the account she gave the host, Marcus Brigstocke, it could have been a programme in itself. She clearly had some fun in the pets department, with the full-body grooms and blueberry and vanilla facials for dogs. And she wasn't put off by the general snootiness: at one point, she said, she asked one of the uniformed types hanging around, "Are you called a shop assistant?" He leaned over and said, "No, madam, we're sales associates."

Another thing she'd never done - true to the title - was see Star Wars, and it proved to be a revelation. "The parodies made sense all of a sudden ... I was in a French and Saunders sketch and I had these buns on - that's who I was supposed to be." Go on, you BBC suits - sign her up and let her loose.

Q&A: Kathy Burke

'Someone once said to me: "Don't take this the wrong way, but you look like Kathy Burke."'

Kathy Burke: 'A national treasure? I'm the opposite!'

After four near-death moments, Kathy Burke is returning to directing - and acting. She tells James Rampton why.

Two excellent autobiographical shorts in the Little Crackers season beginning with Stephen Fry recalling his time as a rule-breaker at his strict public school (the young Fry winningly played by Daniel Roche). Then, at 9.15pm, Kathy Burke remembers the final day of school exams when all she could dream of being was a writer for the NME.

Little Crackers review: Short and Sweet

Obviously Stephen Fry and Kathy Burke deserve much credit for their excellent work, but knocking up short scripts like these shouldn't have been too demanding for such talented thespians. The real credit should probably go to Sky for commissioning this original format.

Christmas may have peaked too soon because Little Crackers (Sky1), a set of short films loosely based on the theme of childhood and featuring top comedy writer/performers, got off to a, er, cracking start with a brace of offerings from Victoria Wood and The IT Crowd's Chris O'Dowd.

Wood's Lancastrian meander down a dark memory lane was touching and familiar, O'Dowd brought a cheeky lump to the throat with a tale about a lad who always wanted Subbuteo yet got lumbered with a hand-me-down Barbie (with moustache).

As an idea for a Christmas series, it's right on the stocking. Kathy Burke channelling X-Ray Spex and The Clash is still to come and tonight's offering from Catherine Tate, featuring a shock-headed ginger of painful shyness who wees herself at frequent intervals is laugh-out-loud funny.

You have been warned.