Tracey Ullman: ‘I couldn’t tell a joke to save my life. I want to be taken seriously’

The actor and comedian, on Desert Island Discs, tells of her push for non-comic roles and how she stole a note from Kirsty MacColl

Tracey Ullman does not regret playing characters of different ethnicity in her comedy shows in Britain and America, but would not do so again. No, I wouldn't do it," she said. It would be different now. But I don't regret anything or apologise for anything. Just move onwards."

The actor and impressionist from Slough, Berkshire, first made her name on television in the BBC show Three of a Kind, alongside Lenny Henry and David Copperfield, in the early 1980s.