You wonder what happened to Jill Tyrell. What was her childhood trauma? Who damaged her? From where do her sociopathic tendencies spring, not to mention her idiosyncratic fashion sense? There must, you reason, be some explanation for her amoral, egomaniacal, casually cruel and single-mindedly selfish behaviour in Nighty Night. An exquisitely vile comic creation, she is, quite possibly, the most monstrous female character to appear on television ever.
Harridans and tarts, ball-breakers and virgins have long provided comic fodder, but only as ancillary characters. Mrs Slocombe, Sybil Fawlty and Margot Leadbetter were all in possession of unpleasantness of one sort or another. But Margot only worked as a snooty counterpoint to the wholesome Barbara while the real star of Fawlty Towers was the awful Basil, for whom we were supposed to feel sympathy on account of his shouty wife. Some, like Dad's Army's Mrs Mainwaring, were only defined by their absence.
It wasn't until Absolutely Fabulous unleashed upon the world Edina and Patsy - especially Patsy - that we really had a proper introduction to women behaving badly.
Yet no one is a patch on Jill. In evolutionary terms, she is a huge leap forward, a feat of genetic engineering. The Office might have popularised the comedy of embarrassment, but Nighty Night has moved it on. The monstrous woman has arrived. Best be nice to her.
Julia Davis, writer and actor, Nighty Night
I've wondered if it was the affair that her husband Terry had [with "that slut"] that made her so horrific, but I really don't know. I sort of think that she was abandoned in childhood - fostered or given away or something. I'm sure she didn't have proper parents around her. For a while, I did think of her having an old mother - a real witchy frightening mum living in the attic - who made her the way she is, and I probably should have explored it more in the script. There were moments when I thought, "I should put the mother in there," but then I'd get carried away on another story. The thing with Jill is, she's completely instinctive and genuinely can't see she's trampling over people psychopathically.
I get asked so often "Are you like Jill?" I should just say, "Yes, I am. Very much so." I might tell people I killed someone a few years ago. I mean, some of the interviews I've read with me are so boring. I remember watching the film Sybil, when I was about 10, and it having an enormous effect on me. I'd always watch programmes and think "Uhhh, that's what's wrong with me." So when I watched Sybil, I thought that's what was wrong with me: I've got 15 personalities. I have one memory of her getting tied to the piano legs or the table legs and getting pumped full of bleach ...
I get a lot of 40-year-old women coming up to me, really pissed, and saying, "We love you," and I wonder who they most relate to. In some ways, I relate more to Cath. I have definitely had experiences of just saying yes to things because I have been shocked by someone doing something so rude or overbearing that I can't answer back. Secretly, I would quite like to be that, I think. I was on a plane recently and the man next to me was really pissed and you know that bit on the arm of your chair where you change channels? I was watching this film and he kept knocking the channels so the film kept changing. And he was eating this yoghurt and it was splattering on to me. I did say, "Excuse me, but could you not spit all over me?" but it was very much like Cath. You just think that being someone rude is much, much easier.
On one hand, I think that everyone, deep down, is a good person. But then, at the same time, I think the world is so cruel and horrible and I find it so upsetting. I wouldn't even know how to write soft, sensitive stuff. Or how to make it funny, at least.
Arabella Weir, writer and actor, The Fast Show
I don't think monstrous women have worked well or been given much air in the past: the women have had to be sympathetic so the guy could play the monster. In The Likely Lads, Thelma was the butt of the jokes. In Men Behaving Badly, the girls were consigned to rolling their eyes, heaving with exasperation, and literally playing the "long-suffering" girlfriends. When I did No Offence [The Fast Show's plain-speaking South African], people said she was really unsympathetic, but really, she was no more unsympathetic than a lot of the male characters. Since The Office, though, it's been the fashion to have a lead character who is totally unpalatable. In Julia's case, she's written a woman and while she's a brilliant writer and a wonderful, arresting performer, Nighty Night's success is also about a moment in time. There is not a single chance it would have been commissioned five years ago.
Catherine Tate, writer and actor, Catherine Tate Show
Apart from Friends, comedy is rarely glamorous. You've got to compromise your dignity in some way for it to work and what's nice about grotesque characters is that they display a lack of vanity. I think women now are not frightened to appear unattractive, as unpleasant characters. Characters work best when they're a mixture of recognition and exaggeration and the funnier you can look within the realms of naturalism, the better. It's through the mouths of these grotesques that you can get away with things you couldn't otherwise. I do a character of an old woman who says things that, on a script in black and white, would be unacceptable. That these characters don't believe they're wrong is what makes it funny while taking the edge off the offence.
Reece Shearsmith, writer and actor, The League of Gentlemen.
I really don't see the female characters I play as monstrous. With our characters, we're suckers for the pathos, pushing all the buttons to make you feel sorry for them. Pauline, for example, is a tragi-comic figure. She is a monster but everyone feels more sorry for her than for Ross in that scenario. It's a weird thing. I think you have to love them a little bit to play them. If there wasn't any germ of humanity, you wouldn't like them and shut the door on them as you would Rose West. Mind you, I'm not sure there's a side to Jill in Nighty Night that you could feel a bit sorry for. Sometimes, maybe, I think I see a tiny chink, but ... I suppose it's staggering that she's completely horrible and relentlessly vile. I think it's partly to do with the hairdresser thing, that they make you feel stupid by asking all these questions and never listening to the answers. I know they've got to concentrate otherwise they'd cut your ear off, but they are really superior. Jill's established that superiority in her whole life.
· Nighty Night is on BBC3 on April 24 from 9pm.
· Franz Ferdinand say
"Monstrous characters are the best vehicles for comedy - and Julia Davis's character in Nighty Night is absolutely horrible."