Rebecca Front

The Spa - Rebecca Front interview

"The first page of the script had me laughing out loud," says Rebecca Front, who plays bolshy manageress Alison Crabbe. "It's a mainstream comedy, but it's not obvious or predictable because Derren Litten's writing is so clever.

My secret life: Rebecca Front, 48, actor

'I told Jeremy Paxman I fancy him.'

After an assured debut in 2010, this was the year that Simon Amstell and Dan Swimer's housebound sitcom really hit its stride. Amstell was still not the greatest actor in the world, but he was playing such an awkward version of himself it didn't matter. He'd also surrounded himself with great characters, played by great actors (Rebecca Front, James Smith, Samantha Spiro, Linda Bassett). While being audaciously self-referential - Amstell's ill-advised joke about Russell Watson's brain tumour on BBC Breakfast was used as a plot device - it was ultimately warm-hearted, with deft scripting that skipped from lunacy to poignancy without missing a beat.

Rebecca Front: Next year will big for women in comedy

Next year will be the biggest yet for women in comedy, says Rebecca Front.

From Grandma's House to The Thick Of It, Bafta-winning actress Rebecca Front has a genius for playing comedy characters tinted with a tragic aura. In her autobiographical Little Cracker of a drama we see the same quality in Front's own life, with Young Rebecca (Lucy Hutchinson) dealing with some heavy-duty emotions by refusing to go to school - until sympathetic head teacher, Miss Dyson (Front herself), steps in to help.

It's the turn of The Thick of It's Rebecca Front to head up tonight's short comedy from Sky. Like the majority of these gently amusing films, Rainy Days and Mondays is a little self-indulgent in its nostalgia, trading as they do on their creator's childhood (Chris O'Dowd's effort spawned the brilliant Moone Boy), but the strength and breadth of talent involved make it an enduringly intriguing project.

In her episode, a young Rebecca develops a death-anxiety complex that belies her years and stops her going to school. These films tend not to delve far beneath the surface of the sometimes dark subject matter, leaving their success resting almost wholly on the subtlety of the young actor at the centre. In this case, Lucy Hutchinson does an impressive job of capturing both overbearing childhood dread and the magical moment its shadow lifts.

Sky's star-filled success story of recent years has been this yuletide anthology, a sprinkling of cheer across the festive schedules. Two of the autobiographical shorts have even sired fantastic series - Kathy Burke's Walking and Talking and Chris O'Dowd's Moone Boy.

The third series opens by whisking us back to the swinging and sexist Sixties. Baby, Be Blonde sees the young Joanna Lumley (played with wide-eyed charm by newcomer Ottilie Mackintosh) contending with haircuts and wig-fittings before her jittery first assignment.

Daniel Ings is uproariously awful as a photographer who marshals his models like animals ("Put the hippo at the back"). And Lumley, making her directorial debut as well as a cameo as a dragonish fashionista, reveals the facts behind the fun in a 15-minute look behind the scenes. The next Little Cracker, featuring Rebecca Front, is on Sky1 tomorrow.

The seasonal return of the Little Crackers series, which features comedy shorts based on the autobiographical recollections of various actors and comedians. Previous participants have included Stephen Fry, Victoria Wood, Jack Whitehall and Sheridan Smith. This latest series begins with Joanna Lumley's Baby, Be Blonde, in which the 19-year-old Jo (Ottilie Mackintosh) is a struggling model who gets a break when she buys a blonde wig. "It didn't, but it made me feel that I had changed the course of my life," says Lumley in the behind-the-scenes film which follows the short. Also starring this week in later episodes are Rebecca Front and Caroline Quentin.

Review: So vitriolic characters were almost erotic

Finally, Episode 5 of this series found both sides of the government in action, as all parties tried to deal best with the fall-out of the viper's kiss that had felled Nicola Murray (Rebecca Front).