Page 4 - Katherine Ryan press pack 2015-20

Duchess, a “heightened version” of her life, will, she says, offer something a bit
different from the sadcoms that have dominated TV in recent years. “My character is
a bit of a fish out of water – she’s this brash, disruptive, North American mother who
doesn’t act like you would think a mother would act. And she’s happy about being a
mum! I don’t feel like it’s a drag. I think you can still be taken seriously, you can still
be fashionable, you can still have fun,” she says, before pausing. “Do you think we
should sadden it up a bit?”

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Katherine Ryan with Jimmy Carr, as co-hosts of Your Face or Mine? Photograph:
Steven Peskett/Comedy Central

However, even if the tears are few, there’s a realism that’s never far from the surface
with Ryan’s work. In both her sitcom and Glitter Room – previously seen on tour and
in the West End – her hyperbolic, cutting gags often centre on motherhood, and
single motherhood in particular. “The Glitter Room is Violet’s bedroom,” Ryan
explains. The show is “about how proud I felt when I bought us our first property
ever, a tiny flat. We decorated it to be really feminine, yet still in 2018 builders would
notice that I was alone and be like, ‘That’s so sad, where’s the man?’ Or ‘You don’t
want all those flowers – no man will want to live here.’”

The builders’ lack of insight, which also extended to insisting that Ryan’s male cat
was definitely pregnant, provided the basis for her show, but it’s also about some
more universal themes. “It’s about the ridiculousness of that and our shape of family,
but it’s chiefly about just celebrating whatever your family is, and [the fact] that you
don’t have to conform,” she says.

In her own experience, there’s still a sense of judgment around single motherhood,
even within showbusiness, where she says she’s constantly asked, “Who’s watching
your daughter?”, or “How have you explained your dirty mouth to her?”