An Irish force in British comedy

Following a 'ridiculously prolonged adolescence' in London, Sharon Horgan got her act together and has just been nominated for a British Comedy Award, writes Donald Clarke

Sharon Horgan last week received a nomination for best female newcomer at the British Comedy Awards. The Irish writer and actor is, naturally, somewhat chuffed, but, at 37 years old and with a substantial body of work behind her, she does, perhaps, have the right to ponder quite how "new" she really is.

"Well it is quite funny," she says. "I suppose it's bitter-sweet. I am 37 and I feel like an old-timer. But those newcomer awards are always a bit of a joke. Every year there are some nominees who are genuinely new and a few who you think have been right round the block."

The nomination acknowledges Horgan's work acting in Rob Brydon's sitcom Annually Retentive and writing and starring in her own show, Pulling. Both series first emerged on the digital Narnia that is BBC3, but have, nonetheless, managed to scare up a cult following for our Sharon. Tonight and on Sunday, episode one of Angelo's, her latest comic opus, will air on Five and the Paramount Comedy Channel and, if the viewers have any sense, will further enhance her swelling reputation.

When you consider that she has also appeared on Channel 4's The Friday Night Project and, for the BBC, has contributed to The Catherine Tate Show and Monkey Dust, Sharon Horgan begins to look a little bit like a veteran.

SHE WAS, HOWEVER, a late starter in this game. Born in London, she moved to Ireland with her parents - sometime publicans, sometime poultry farmers - while still an infant. After school, like many directionless creative types, she dallied for a while in art college, before heading off to England with wild dreams of becoming an actress. She always planned on returning home, but, unlike so many of her generation, never quite made the journey back to the freshly thrusting nation.

"I would never have gone back without having achieved something," Horgan, who lives with her husband, Jeremy Rainbird, in east London, muses. "That much I knew. I just knew I wasn't going to go back until I got something sorted out. Is that a ridiculous thing to say? Anyway, I think now I am a Londoner. I am very Irish and very proud of my country, but London is a great city to be creative in." While Sharon was failing to make it into the Royal Shakespeare Company, her pesky siblings were becoming conspicuous successes back home. Maria Horgan, her older sister, runs Liberty Films, a thriving production company, and Mark, her brother, produces Off the Ball, the excellent sports show on Newstalk. But, notwithstanding Sharon's growing renown, the most famous member of the family remains her rugby-playing brother, Shane Horgan.

"I don't know what it is about my family," she says. "Maybe it's all the turkey we were fed as kids. My sister is such a smart girl. She has a real head on her shoulders and obviously Shane couldn't help being talented. But I was the last one to finally get their s**t together. When my little brother began doing stuff I realised it was time to make a move."

DOES SHE EXPERIENCE mixed emotions watching her brother play? She must be very proud, but she must also be aware that he could have his nose knocked into his brain at any moment? "You do, of course, have mixed feelings. I love watching him play, but I worry about everything - from the smallest thing to the biggest thing. But, yeah, it is always exciting."

Let's backtrack a little. I wonder if - to draw from the Biographical Dictionary of Comedy Cliches - she developed her acerbic voice as a way of distracting bullies in the schoolyard.

Pulling, developed with her writing partner Dennis Kelly, deals with a woman who, after getting freaked out at her hen party, dumps her fiance and moves in with two decadent friends. It is packed with the sort of savage observations about female misbehaviour that could serve as effective weapons in the teen hostilities that often break out on the way from the dining hall to the domestic science room.

"Well you know it is slightly cliched but it is also true," she says. "I suppose you use humour to be popular in school. If you are friends with the popular girl in school you've got to keep her interested in some way. It's a way of standing out from the crowd.

"Not that I was an idiot, but I was never one of the super-brains. If you are not going to shine in sport or academia, then comedy is a way of flexing your muscles."

At any rate, it took quite a while for Sharon to realise she could make a living from her talent for making people laugh. After a decade or so moping about London, she decided to take an English degree at Brunel University and, after graduation, sent off a few sketches to the BBC. The material won an award for new comedy in 2001 and she has never looked back since.

It sounds as if her career is the happy consequence of a very early midlife crisis. She was cruising idly in one direction, then, after veering around dramatically, slammed jarringly into success.

"There was a lot of farting around I guess," she says. "I just had a ridiculously prolonged adolescence. I went to London to do fringe theatre and it took me a while to work out that wasn't working. I just fell into comedy."

ANGELO'S DOES NOT, happily, look like the work of some dilettante who just "fell into" comic writing. Following the adventures of a gang of losers, fantasists and maniacs who frequent a cafe near Trafalgar Square, the show has a complex structure and abounds with wry commentary on contemporary neuroses. One character has lost his job, but still tells his wife he is heading to the office each day.

Another, the cafe owner's daughter, longs to join a rap group that looks a little like So Solid Crew. The press release suggests that the show is seeking to blend comedy with soap opera. For once, this doesn't sound like PR baloney.

"Oh yeah, that is from the horse's mouth actually," Horgan says.

"I am a bit of a soap fan - especially Coronation Street. I love the way you get all these separate stories. You really get your money's worth. The camera in the pub will flick from one drinker to another and, as it goes by, you pick up these snippets of conversation that each tell a story."

Horgan turns up as a police officer whose partner - both romantic and professional - is forced to listen as she details the intricacies of their sex life to everybody she meets. One of the first episode's most excruciating gags finds them discussing fertility problems with their doctor and sees the unfortunate man forced to reveal that he still masturbates twice a day. I would hope this scene is not based on incidents from the writer's home life.

"Wouldn't it be really sad if I said yes," she laughs. "No. I suppose some of the mild bickering might be based on our relationship but that's about it. I would say that the relationship is based on friends of friends that I have observed. It is really nothing to do with my husband." Friends of friends? Very diplomatic.

HORGAN'S HUSBAND RUNS a creative services agency (that's something to do with ads and telly, I understand) in the West End. The couple live with their daughter Sadhbh, now five, in one of the more gentrified corners of Hackney, and appear to savour the lives of modern media dynamos. Still, it must be tricky managing parenthood with the demands of mainstream television. As we speak, Sharon has just fled a shoot for the second series of Pulling and is on her way to pick up Sadhbh from school.

"Well, I have a fantastic office at the end of the garden," she explains. "That's great. When I am writing it's great. It's short hours and I am at home. So I finish work at four. When I am filming it is a nightmare. I feel I have to make it up later with sweets. But it is a very flexible medium. So that works out quite well." The potential best newcomer admits that the media attention has come upon her quite suddenly and concedes that it is very hard to conceive of a sensible plan for the future. This is not a business that invites long-term game plans, but I suspect she is a woman of no small ambition.

"You have to wait and see what comes along," she says. " I have got some interest from the States as well now and I am hoping to work for the BBC again fairly soon." So she is in it for the long haul? "Oh, I really believe that things can change and the next big thing comes along and you are suddenly no longer so exciting. You just have to make the best of that. Maybe I'll start training to be a librarian in the evenings, just in case."

The first episode of Angelo's screens at 11pm tomorrow on Five and at 11.25pm on Sunday on the Paramount Comedy Channel

The British Comedy Awards are hosted by Jonathan Ross on Dec 5