Catherine Tate

She's a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company and starred in the BBC's lavish adaptation of Dickens' Bleak House, Oh, and she has a neat little sideline in comedy too. Clever girl, that Catherine.

Catherine Tate isn't exactly what you'd call a born optimist. In fact, she says that "any form of success is only ever a relief and sets my default position back to neutral." She must be feeling pretty bloomin' neutral nowadays, what with being Britain's biggest female comedy star and all. Dawn French saw the threat coming years ago when she issued a dire warning; "Catherine Tate is too talented and must be destroyed."

The path from convent school to chav queen Lauren Cooper has been a bumpy one. Leaving school without A-levels, it took her four tries before she bagged a place at drama collage, and that was after she fled from the Sylvia Young Stage School (she lasted a mere week). But after all that zigging, Tate finally zagged into success.

She got luvvied up with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and was torn between being a serious thesp and an alternative comedian. The Edinburgh Festival decided for her - a sell-out show in 2001 plonked her firmly on the comedy map, and before long she was starring in her own sketch show and, just as importantly, insulting Prince Philip (he reportedly complained when, during a Royal Variety Performance, she shouted up at the Queen; "She is bling, but the old fella next to her is asleep!")

Not content with planting her flag on the pinnacle of telly comedy, the tireless Catherine has even amassed an army of fans as the one Doctor Who companion in recent years who - Gallifrey be praised - didn't actually fancy the Doctor. It's all a far cry from the days when her telly credits included such esteemed roles as 'young woman' on Men Behaving Badly.

But is she really as negative as she claims? Well, we certainly hope so - every comic worth their salt looks on the bleak side of life. Recently treading the boards as a serious actor, she seems capable of anything, but as long as she continues to give us characters as needlessly offensive as Nan Taylor, we'll be happy.