We spotted a rather lovely interview with Julia Davis before Christmas, so we thought we’d share it with you, if you missed it, by way of a new year’s treat.

Julia talks to The Guardian’s Tim Lusher – about her career, motherhood and her approach to writing. Rightly or wrongly, one gets the sense from the article that the interviewer knows and respects his subject, and as a result it avoids many of the usual cliches and provides us with some interesting nuanced insights into what makes Ms Davis tick.

Of her tendency to create unhinged on screen characters, Julia says: “If you look at the characters, they are always frustrated, slightly depressed or, as you said, possibly mentally ill. But comedically, you don’t want people to be all happy and getting what they want because there’s no drama, is there? I always find it hard to answer those sort of questions because I don’t really know why I do what I do.” And if she did? “Probably wouldn’t do it. I think if I sat [and thought it through] really logically, it’s unlikely I’d come up with anything.””

We were also tickled that the two comedies she cites as recent favourites are two TVO-connected shows: Doll & Em (“the subtlety – it’s deceptively simple what they’ve done”) and Catastrophe (“the compelling thing of them [Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney] as a couple”). Horgan, she says, “is much more contemporary than me”.” We couldn’t agree with Julia on the magnificence of these shows more!

To read the interview in full head in over here.