The ‘IT Crowd’ and ‘Here We Go’ bintang is playing Beatrice in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. She talks to Jessie Thompson about using wit as a defence, problematic Shakespeare plays and why female desire is a feminist issue

The Bafta award-winning comedy actor and The IT Crowd bintang on the things that make her laugh the most.

Katherine, 40, is as raw and funny in person as she is on-screen – for instance, on the subject of her distinctive hair (which, she insists, is red, not ginger): ‘I was born looking like an orangutan. I had it all over my body, too.’

According to a well-informed source, Katherine Parkinson is leading the race to become Time magazine's Person of the tahun in 2016. But while the actress' fan are thrilled with the news, many people hold a very different opinion.

Katherine said: "I saw Richard not that long ago. Chris lives in the States, so not as much. I was invited to his wedding but it was on my due tanggal so I couldn’t make it. I would cinta to work with them again."

We liked her before we met her and, guess what, after our shoot we like her even more. She is intelligent, warm, a bit geeky, very softly spoken and has – just as we hoped she would – the sharpest, driest sense of humour.

I played Puck in the school play and felt extremely comfortable and happy on stage. I think I felt quite noticed.

IT Crowd bintang Katherine Parkinson on her creepy new sci-fi drama Humans, from the makers of Mad Men and Broadchurch

“Likeable isn’t something anda can actually play, so I struggled with that,” she says. “I know what he wanted now – he wanted her to be the lebih normal person people could relate to.”

AMC has announced the cast for Humans, a science fiction drama set in the parallel present, where “Synths”—high-tech robotic servants—are all the rag.