Kathy Burke

Greatest hits: Harry Enfield and Chums (1994-99), Gimme Gimme Gimme (1999-2001)

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (1999-2001)

The no-holds-barred British icon is a multi-award-winning actor, author and director. Later gaining comedy fame as Waynetta Slob on Harry Enfield and Chums, Burke tired of playing merely one character, so she created greasy teenager Perry, the all-time friend of Enfield's prepubescent Kevin – thus an era-defining duo was born.

Burke's chameleonic career has likewise seen her win best extra at Cannes for her performance in Gary Oldman'southward heartbreaking drama Nil past Mouth (1997) and a British Comedy Honor for her part as the ballsy, advised Linda in Gimme Gimme Gimme. At present focusing on theatre directing, she returns to acting every now and then to steal scenes in the likes of Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011).

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Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Greatest hits: Crashing (2016), Fleabag (2016)

Fleabag (2016–)

From the creation of her first series, Crashing, to the contempo Emmy-nominated American spy drama Killing Eve, as well as a starring function in Solo: A Star Wars Story, Waller-Span's career has gone from strength to strength.

Since turning her sell-out one-woman Edinburgh bear witness Fleabag into a hit BBC comedy drama, she's go a key voice in the new wave of British female person writers. Enormously pop on both sides of the pond, Fleabag was a desperately bleak yet painfully comic show that portrayed sexual activity and sadness from a visceral and honest female perspective rarely seen on tv.

Michaela Coel

Greatest hits: Chewing Glue (2015-), Black Mirror – USS Callister (2017)

Chewing Mucilage (2015)

Afterward starting out as a poet on the London club scene, writer, producer and role player Coel created and starred in the purlieus-pushing, boundlessly funny, BAFTA-winning Channel iv series Chewing Gum.

Every bit Tracey Gordon, Coel examines class, religion, family, friendship and sex through a delightfully muddied lens, with a bang-up sense of fun and filth. It's a sincere portrayal of blackness female life that'southward still sadly underrepresented in British TV comedy. Too actualization in Charlie Brooker's techno-satire Black Mirror and with a recent starring part in Black Globe Rising, Coel is definitely a rising star.

Julia Davis

Greatest hits: Nighty Nighttime (2004-05), Hunderby (2012-15)

Nighty Nighttime (2004-5)

The grande dame of the hilariously unhinged, Davis became part of British one-act royalty with the likes of Simon Pegg, Mark Heap, Kevin Eldon and Rebecca Front in the ensemble cast for the weird and wonderful late-90s sketch show Large Train. Front end and Eldon returned for Davis's outset sitcom, Nighty Nighttime, where they starred alongside Angus Deayton and Ruth Jones.

One of the most disturbingly black comedies ever to air, the show'southward enduring genius was its almost painful unwatchability – information technology'due south not just cringeworthy just terrifically twisted. Davis'south uniquely agonising sense of humour can likewise be found in her gothic mini-series Hunderby and most recently in Camping, a desperately uncomfortable series most a group of friends on holiday in Devon.

Sharon Horgan

Greatest hits: Pulling (2006-09), Ending (2015-), Divorce (2016-)

Catastrophe (2015-)

Writer, actor and producer, Horgan offset came to prominence with her brilliant BBC Three sitcom Pulling, but information technology was Catastrophe that really showed her unbelievable talent for tragicomedy. Co-written with her co-star Rob Delaney, the show'south brilliance was non just in the pair's chemistry just in its believable, compassionate portrayal of the pathos of relationships, alcoholism, depression, family life, and all the mess and madness that comes with them.

Horgan's ongoing schedule also includes writing Motherland, the sitcom nigh center-class working London mothers, and the hit HBO show Divorce starring Sarah Jessica Parker.

Carla Lane

Greatest hits: The Liver Birds (1969-96), Collywobbles (1978-83)

Carla Lane

1 of the first women to claim success from writing and creating popular British Television sitcoms, Liverpudlian Carla Lane was well known for the shows that represented her hometown: The Liver Birds (co-created with her friend Myra Taylor), well-nigh two single women sharing a flat, and later on Bread, nearly a family unit battling poverty in the 1980s.

Yet it was the tragicomic sitcom Butterflies that elevated Lane to greatness with her compassionate portrayal of Ria, played by Wendy Craig, as a bored housewife who considers having an thing with a charming stranger. As Craig once said of Lane: "Her greatest gift was that she understood women and wrote the truth about them." A truth yet preciously rare in the writers rooms of today.

Jennifer Saunders

Greatest hits: Admittedly Fabulous (1992-2012), French & Saunders (1987-), Jam & Jerusalem (2006-09)

Absolutely Fabulous (1992-2012)

With her longtime one-act partner Dawn French, French & Saunders were pioneers of the 1980s 'culling comedy' stand-up fix. Surreal, silly and sophisticated in equal measures, forth with Victoria Wood, Jo Brand and Tracey Ullman they blazed a trail for women in both stand-upwards and on television set.

In 1992, Saunders' zeitgeisty, bolly-swigging sitcom Absolutely Fabled careened onto our TV screens and an instant striking was born. It was a show that captured the 90s excess and hedonism of a pre-crash, post-Thatcher era. As the author and star of other shows such equally Jam & Jerusalem, a recent Absolutely Fabulous movie and her standing collaborations with Dawn French, she's been an integral voice in British comedy for more than than three decades.

Meera Syal

Greatest hits: Goodness Gracious Me (1998-2015), The Kumars at No. 42 (2001-06)

Goodness Gracious Me (1998-2015)

At present a household name, Syal came to fame with Goodness Gracious Me, the British Asian sketch bear witness she created along with Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir and Nina Wadia. Beginning its life on Radio 4, it was and still is wholly unique in its representation of British Asian culture, and in the fashion it perfectly punctured the prejudices of the time with a satirical pop. The now legendary "Going for an English" skit will forever hold its identify in the sketch comedy canon.

Nominated for a BAFTA for The Kumars at No. 42, Syal has also written numerous screenplays and novels. In 2015, she was awarded a CBE for services to drama and literature.

Tracey Ullman

Greatest hits: 3 of a Kind (1981-83), Girls on Superlative (1985-86), The Tracey Ullman Show (1987-90)

Iii of a Kind (1981-83)

The start British woman to have her own Television sketch testify in both the UK and America, Ullman kicked off her comedy career with A Kick Up the Eighties in 1981 (aslope a very young Rik Mayall), with her big suspension coming forth shortly after in Three of a Kind (co-starring Lenny Henry).

Afterward moving to America, she became a hugely pop diverseness star and main of impressions with The Tracey Ullman Show. Ullman would become on to win multiple Emmys and star in films directed by the likes of Woody Allen and Robert Altman before returning to England and her sketch one-act roots with the BBC's Tracey Ullman's Testify.

Victoria Wood

Greatest hits: Victoria Wood: Equally Seen on TV (1985-87), Dinnerladies (1998-2000)

Dinnerladies (1998-2000)

Lancashire born and at present much missed, this multi-talented entertainer began her career as a unique presence of the 1980s. At a time when television set, and especially comedy, was generally dominated by southerners, Forest'southward northern amuse and sense of humor shone through. It was rare at the time to find a solo woman writing not only sketch shows simply also performing stand up-up and songs, and she had a lyrical wit and comic timing that has rarely been matched.

From Victoria Wood: As Seen on Television set (the birthplace of Acorn Antiques) to her first sitcom, Dinnerladies, Wood was nationally adored. Her sharp and silly observations cut through the social mores of everyday British life.