I think comedy is very important and laughter is something I am passionate about. Probably because I am still prone to fits of giggles even though I am 36.  Somehow this justifies it.

In order to explore comedy, to be around people who make funny work, and to find out more about it, I do the following things:

• In association with my business partner Rachel King, through our creative partnership Wolf and Diva, I coordinate filmmaker training for the LOCO London Comedy Film Festival including:

  • Kickstart Your Comedy Career | annually

  • Past: this course for Women Who Write Comedy

  • I also voiced their trailer in my first outing as a voiceover artist! (Thanks to Rob Castell and Studio Zob for recording me).

• I interview comedians at events like:

  • Cheltenham Literature Festival, including David Mitchell,  Amelia Bullmore, John Morton and Paul Schlesinger, Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong

  • LOCO London Comedy Film Festival, including Lucy Lumsden and Julia Davis, Rachel Freck, Debbie Isset, Destiny Ekaragha, Chris and Ben Blaine

  • the British Comedy Guide, including Damon Beesley, Paul Bassett Davies, Bill Dare

  • as part of my creative partnership Wolf and Diva with the breathtakingly brilliant photographer Rachel King

  • and for my own podcast www.30fuck.com, including Clive Anderson, John Lloyd, John Culshaw, Tom Rosenthal, David Babani, Yve Blake and Davina McCall

• I have taken courses such as:

  • Writing and performing Comedy for Radio and Television

  • iO Chicago One Week Longform Improv Intensive

• I occasionally drop in to improv jams with my friends at:

  • C3467X

  • One Stop Theatre - this is actually something that my friend Cara and I invented that involves performing to people for the duration of one tube stop, but I didn't know what other heading to classify it by. It is excellent fun, a tiny bit scary and therefore thrilling, and Cara made a portable proscenium arch and everything.

• I am writing 3 sitcoms:

  • Transition Town (in collaboration with my brother Rob Castell): a Good Life for the 21st Century, in which siblings Joe and Ruth battle the odds to live according to their principles, whilst also dealing with turning 30, looking for love and being fans of 80s movies.

  • Lunchbreak (in collaboration with my friend Chris Warner): a surreal short form  animated web series purely inspired by overblown flights of fancy conjured up by two friends with clock-watching bosses and minimal time allowances for the little things like, oh, lunch.

  • The Isle of Lucy (in collaboration with my friend Joanna Hawkins): if Two Broke Girls was directed by Christopher Guest.  Spinal Tap & Keith Floyd obsessives Jo and Rachael live a life devoted to meeting Derek Smalls, writing a feminist zombie movie and facing the every day challenges of adult living.

• I make ramshackle, sometimes thought-provoking, hopefully joyful podcasts:

  • with my brother Rob Castell - naturally this is known as the podcastell

  • with my friend Rebecca - we provide wisdom, joy and basic crisis aversion for the late-20s/early-30s individual in 30 Fuck (see above also)

• Ridiculousness.  I mean just general.