Julia Morris

You'd better enjoy Julia Morris while you can, Australia. Sure, you might think that you enjoy her already what with her Sydney Comedy Festival show ("My Time Out award-winning show," she corrects, accurately) ‘Don't You Know Who I Was?' and being on the television and all, but there's a reasonable chance that, having not long retrieved her from a life and career in the UK, we might be losing her again - to a different country, no less!

"When I did the Sydney Festival I went to Montreal [Comedy Festival], did all sorts of bits of work, then I've been in LA for the last month and I thought ‘well, I've got a month and a half before we go to Los Angeles for the first quarter of next year, and that is just a quick and fabulous show to get into a theatre and do," she explains. "And I love the Metro - and for a show like this I think you need somewhere a bit intimate rather than some huge arena."

The book which shares the show's title is even more intimate - while the show is laugh out loud funny, the book is often surprisingly, well, poignant.

"Well, the book's more personal, and about touching the people," she says, tongue slightly in cheek, "but if it's going to be on the stage it's got to be funny, it's as simple as that. I only took one or two stories from the book, but the rest was stuff I didn't feel I could put into the book. Like, I didn't put any dope references in the book, there's not even a swear word in there."

As anyone who's seen Morris live will attest, that's uncharacteristically demure.

"Well, I thought ‘it's a legacy, I'm leaving it forever'," she laughs. "And I don't like swearing in books. For one of the biggest swearers in showbiz, I don't actually like reading swearwords that much. I think it kinda ruins the flow of a good sentence. Maybe it's the C and the K looking really stark, I don't know."

So it's potentially a problem that could be solved by a careful choice of font?

"Absolutely! Or if I could get some swearwords that don't end with C and K, I'll be laughing."

So why the US relocation?

"Well, out of the Cracker Comedy Festival I was seen by US management," she explains, "and they approached me in April. So this trip I had some wonderful meets'n'greets, and pilot season is on in January-February-March and the networks I spoke with are keen to have me come and read for as much as I can. And while my kids are little enough – and bizarrely the lease on our house runs out in January – it's kinda like all roads are leading to LA at the moment. And also, I think Australian television has gotten to the stage where we're making Australia's Best Pet Headstands, because nobody's got any money to make anything better than that."

Hold on: Australia's best pet headstands? This I gotta see!

"Oh, I know! And they're in party hats!"

Well, Tim Minchin has his song the 'YouTube Lament', where he rues the fact that all of his hard work, careful wit and artistic angst still can't compete with a YouTube clip of a kitten waking up.

"But that's the problem - I'm on both sides of the fence, and what do you do then? You can't stay straddled all your life, and Tim's a very clever man. I guess I'm with him: 'don't worry man, that kitten's finished in this town, don't worry.' Except then I'd have the kitten over for dinner. I'd be hedging my bets. You don't know who that kitten knows. They have their paw on the pulse." Andrew P Street