Tracey Ullman joins Ted Lasso

...as she shockingly reveals that Larry David is 'very lovely'

Tracey Ullman has joined the cast of Ted Lasso.

The comedian disclosed that she was shooting the football comedy in an interview with Woman's Hour on Radio 4 yesterday.

But she didn't reveal anything about her character in the upcoming fourth series of the hit Apple TV+ show.

Currently shooting in London, the new series focuses on Jason Sudeikis' title character taking over coaching Richmond FC's women's team.

Having come to prominence as a 'kamikaze comedy person … labelled wacky, zany, crazy' Ullman says she now appreciates being seen as a character actor. She can currently be seen starring alongside Cillian Murphy in Steve, the new Netflix drama about a school for troubled boys – but on Lasso, she was 'having a wonderful laugh and improvising' she said.

Sex Education's Tanya Reynolds and comedy actor Jude Mack also appear in the fourth series, joining returning core cast members Brett Goldstein, Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple, Jeremy Swift and Brendan Hunt.

Having made her name in sketch shows such as A Kick Up the Eighties with Rik Mayall and Miriam Margolyes, and Three of a Kind with Lenny Henry and David Copperfield, Ullman moved to America to star in The Tracey Ullman Show from 1987.

With a highly successful career in the States, she returned to the UK for Tracey Ullman's Show on BBC One in 2016, followed by topical series Tracey Breaks The News for the BBC the following year.

She told Woman's Hour that other than the 'wonderful' Victoria Wood and French and Saunders, who are 'geniuses', she went to America at a time when 'there weren't women with their own shows in England, really.

'Women were given a chance to do comedy in America much earlier than they were here,’ she explained. ‘Gilda Radner… Lucille Ball or Carol Burnett, Imogene Coca on Your Show of Shows, Elaine May. So I was very excited by that. I think we were ahead of the game in America with women.’

Describing herself as 'a bit of a parrot', Ullman said she had taken the opportunity to travel the US extensively, to 'learn all these new accents and have experiences and study all these people that I love and then put them in a show… I love my American life, I love my British life … I still have a very strong American identity.'

She added that 'American comedy used to be kinder' than British comedy but agreed with Woman's Hour host Nuala McGovern that differences between the two countries' television output had essentially disappeared, pointing out that we had appreciated sitcoms such as Cheers, while Fleabag commanded 'enormous respect' in the States.

Ullman said she wants to keep making television comedy, stressing that alongside more serious fare, 'I want to be in something funny as well.

'But meaningful, be with a nice ensemble,' similar to her experience of making the final two series of Curb Your Enthusiasm. In the HBO show she played Larry David's lover and misanthropic equal, the repulsive councilwoman Irma Kostroski, pitched to her by the show's creator as 'the worst person in Los Angeles'.

It was 'so wonderful' Ullman told McGovern. ‘[David] is the best. He's secretly a very lovely man and he'll hate me saying that. To do something like that every year as well and know I can handle the heavy [dramatic] stuff, too, is wonderful.'