BBC Comedy: How were you originally approached to do Nighty Night?

RF: I was sent the script , I think partly because Julia and I had done an episode of Alan Partridge together.

BBC Comedy: How was your character explained to you? Where you given any special directions?

RF: Julia wanted Cath to be too polite to be able to deal with Jill’s onslaughts, but not so utterly loveable that it would be unbearably cruel watching those onslaughts. Cath had to have faults too, and we decided she should have this passive/aggressive thing going on, nice on the surface, but quite steely underneath.

BBC Comedy: Did you get the character of Cath fully formed, or were you involved in developing her?

RF: She was already very defined, but Julia loves improvising, as do I, so we did a lot of work together on additional foibles and so on.

BBC Comedy: What can you say about Cath Cole in the new series? How has she changed?

RF: She’s a lot more confident, physically stronger and in love...

BBC Comedy: What were your first experiences of doing comedy?

RF: I was in the Oxford Revue as a student (which is the Oxford equivalent of the Footlights) and then formed a double act with Sioned Wiliam, who is now in charge of comedy at ITV. My brother wrote sketches and I wrote songs, so it was very self-contained. But I never did any stand-up.

BBC Comedy: How did you get involved with The Day Today / On the Hour. What was that like to work on? The main cast all contributed material, was that very rewarding?

RF: Armando Iannucci produced a radio series with Sioned and me, and then I worked on some of his other shows. After a while he asked me to be in the pilot of On The Hour. I said yes, but told him I wouldn't improvise. Armando ignored me, fortunately. I’m working with him on something at the moment and I told him I wouldn’t do any writing. He's ignored me on that too. The Day Today and Partridge were fantastic to work on.

BBC Comedy: The Day Today/ Alan Partridge involved a very 'hyper-real' style of comedy acting which felt really new at the time. Did you feel it was very pioneering? Was everything very meticulous?

RF: I suppose it was new back then, although it’s been done in movies for years. We were all quite strict with ourselves about not being too ‘gaggy’.

BBC Comedy: You've been in some great sketch comedy. Do you have a preference between that and playing a character across a whole series?

RF: I prefer doing long-running characters as you get to develop them properly, but in sketch comedy there’s more fun to be had with dressing-up!

BBC Comedy: What comedy do you watch / own copies of?

RF: I loved Victoria Wood and Julie Walters, and really enjoy things like The Office and The League Of Gentlemen. If it’s not well acted, I won’t watch it. I also love a lot of American comedy. I’m a devotee of anything by Larry David or Christopher Guest.

Links:
Rebecca Front in the IMDB
Rebecca Front in Wikipedia

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