Iconic Women: Rebecca Front

Next on our rundown of Iconic Women we love is Rebecca Front: a bit of a personal indulgence for me, having been a huge fangirl of the  BAFTA-winning comic actress and writer since she first appeared on cult satire hit The Day Today in the 1990s: even then, I wanted to see more of her obvious talent.

At first, she shone in smaller role on all my favourite comedy shows, while male co-stars took most of the praise. But unusually for a woman, Front became better known as she got older, recently taking on a lead role in BBC political satire The Thick of It.

Female comedians (and female viewers) are often wrongly lumped into a category of 'gentle humour' which as far as I'm concerned is a contradiction in terms - but enough about my sense of humour! Front has never conformed to this stereotype. Taking on challenging roles in dark dramas such as Nighty Night, she has worked alongside comedy heavyweights like Chris Morris, Peter Capaldi and Steve Coogan; She's also proven her worth as a serious actress, with straight roles in film and TV. She has a column in The Guardian, and writes on various topics.

In her writing, Front is refreshingly frank about her own personal demons, and it was through these articles that I learned how she suffers from a condition I am all too familiar with myself: claustrophobia. Having struggled with a fear of confined spaces since childhood (and now mostly overcome it) I had never known anyone in the public eye "come out" as a sufferer before Front did, and it was a relief to read accounts of what we go through from a respected media voice. She even made a joke of it on The Thick of It, where her character Nicola Murray is terrified of lifts.

Fortunately, Front is in no danger of falling in to the navel-gazing trap of sharing experiences online, stating that for her, her problems with anxiety have been "little more than an inconvenience". She has instead drawn on her own battle with phobias to help and educate others. On her Twitter feed she regularly promotes the work of the charity Anxiety UK, where she is a celebrity patron.

Although she recognises the struggle that female comics have to survive in a male-dominated world, Front refuses to get involved with "positive discrimination" and says that she has never been jealous of her male colleauges. It's an attitude that seems to have paid off, and refusing to be embittered or bogged down by a discrimination that nobody can deny is no easy feat. All this is why I love Rebecca Front!

Front in one of her many supporting roles on The Day Today

Check out Rebecca in action in this parody of a BBC news "grilling" on The Thick of It