Rob Delaney: I would rather starve than return to Catastrophe

Comic also shares his top writing advice

It was probably never going to be on the cards anyway, given its perfectly ambiguous ending, but Rob Delaney says he never wants to return to Catastrophe.

Asked whether he would even make another series of the Channel 4 comedy he co-created with Sharon Horgan, the American comedian said: ‘I hope we don't, only because people reboot everything now. Let it be!

‘We stopped doing it because we had done four series that we were proud of and we could smell that we were getting in danger of repeating ourselves, and frankly, we said a lot about marriage and parenting in there.

‘Maybe Sharon might have some ideas. I totally don't. I had scraped the barrel and was like, that's all I know.

Delaney and Horgan enjoying an outdoor drink in Catastrophe

‘So, if we did another one, I think it might be bad, or worse, a cash grab. I would rather starve to death. I don't want my kids to starve to death, but I would totally on principal be like, check it out, I starved to death because it was cooler than trot out some [rubbish]… ‘

And he said of so many shows that do reboot: ‘I was fine with that not existing anymore and then it comes back and you're like, "meh". So God help us if we ever did that.’

Speaking to Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett on the Waitrose food podcast Dish, Delaney also reflected on another part of his past: coming to prominence via funny posts on Twitter.

‘If you were silly on Twitter and people followed you, then you amassed enough of a following where you could be like, ‘Cincinnati, I'm coming,’ and then you could sell tickets,’ he recalled. ‘So it was so great.

‘But it's funny, I haven't had a pleasant thought about Twitter now in some years.’

Offering advice to would-be writers, the comic said: ‘If there's anything I could impart to any young aspiring writer out there is that you can polish a turd. They say you can't.

‘Whoever said you can't polish a turd is insane, because with writing you create the turd. And then you polish it.

‘So people are afraid, I get it. You're afraid to write something bad, right? But you have to kill that fear with a hammer before you can be a writer. That's any good.

‘You totally have to be like, it's bad. It's bad. And then look at it, figure out what's bad and change it. A wonderful work of art can come from a bad first draft, for sure.’