Interview: rarely asked questions - Cariad Lloyd

Cariad Lloyd was nominated for a Foster's Best Newcomer Award in 2011 and since then has also made a name for herself on the live scene, most notably with Austentatious, the highly skilled troupe who create a new Austen play at each performance. Lloyd is nothing if not diverse.

In a stand-out move, Joseph Morpurgo's short is shot as if from the video camera of a bored father being dragged along to his son's Nativity play, by his pushy mum (Cariad Lloyd). Though there are some strong performances, not least from Mike Wozniak, who can get a laugh from a pissed-off stare in the role of a fellow parent, the humour doesn't entirely do justice to the imaginative set-up.

Review - QI: series M, episode 4 - Miscellany

The most impressive member of the panel was Cariad Lloyd and her "organs of matrimonial necessity".

Radio Times review

Based on this episode, QI will definitely benefit from some of the extra female energy it'll get when Sandi Toksvig takes over. Upon given a question about historical attitudes to the private parts of women, an exasperated Cariad Lloyd is forced to educate her clueless male co-panellists (and host Stephen Fry) in a little anatomy that leaves them all squirming in their chairs like schoolboys.

As she comments, they've never looked more terrified - not even when they earlier learnt about the radioactive secrets that used to lurk inside children's breakfast cereals...

Jo Sargent interview

Cariad Lloyd talks to comedy producer Jo Sargent (in her only ever interview) about nurturing talent.

Cariad Lloyd on Julie Walters

From Mrs Overall to Mrs Weasley, Walters' niceness is in danger of overtaking her immense stagecraft - if I could only be as real as she is.

Austentatious: Making it up as they go along

"It's the Neighbours of Jane Austen," says comedian Cariad Lloyd.

How to produce your own comedy show

Ever had the urge to stand on a crate in a room full of strangers? Cariad Lloyd has everything you need to know.

It's not good news when a programme moves channels before it even airs but that's exactly what happened to sitcom Give Out Girls. Originally planned to be shown on Sky Living it was transferred to Comedy Central which, after watching episode one, was possibly a better fit. Set in the world of promotions Give Out Girls follows the fortunes of four ladies who work for the Hot Staff company. The only character that the sitcom really spends any time with is 29-year-old Marilyn (Kerry Howard); an unreliable schemer who tries her best to do as little work as possible. Thanks to the fantastic performance by the ever-reliable Howard, Marilyn was the only one of Give Out Girls' characters who didn't feel like a cliché. Marilyn's colleagues are the snide beautiful Kiwi Zoe (Mianda Hennessy), fun-loving Welsh girl Poppy (Cariad Lloyd) and the naive Gemma (former X-Factor contestant Diana Vickers). I'm not sure why Hatty Ashdown and Tony MacMurray thought the world of promotions was such a comic minefield because the scenes where the girls were out on the street didn't yield much laughter. In fact the majority of the jokes in Give Out Girls were incredibly tired and included a ridiculous sexual harassment charge as well as Marilyn mistaking a facial mole for an olive. As she proved in Him and Her, Kerry Howard is a fantastic comic actress and I felt she made a potential two-dimensional character into somebody vaguely realistic. Aside from Howard, only Tracey Ann-Oberman as the girls' powersuit wearing boss made an impression. Although Howard and Oberman tried their best, they couldn't save a sitcom that didn't make me laugh once. Based on the evidence in this episode, Kerry Howard deserves much better and I'm hoping her next project is a programme worthy of her considerable comic talent.

Comedian Hatty Ashdown plumbed her years as a promotions girl for the basis of this new sitcom. Him & Her's Kerry Howard is the hapless Marilyn, perpetually in the bad books of ex-EastEnder Tracy-Ann Oberman, playing her mucky boss Debbie. In an identikit town centre, the team - comprising Cariad Lloyd (the odd one), Miranda Hennessy (bitchy) and The X Factor's Diana Vickers (ditzy) - are sampling new booze Nectarino. Whoever does the best wins a job in Spain with Debbie's tragic underling Steve. It's not awful.