The Wreck and Big Boys star speaks to us about the new Sky Original Mr Bigstuff, working alongside Danny Dyer, and her enduring friendship with Ryan Sampson.

Harriet Webb is best known as cousin Shannon in Big Boys, but now she’s turning wife-to-be in the suburbs in this hilarious new Sky Original series.

Playing Kirsty, the down-on-her-luck but loveable fiancée of Glen (Ryan Sampson), the actress lets her comedy chops loose as mayhem as Danny Dyer’s Lee enters their lives.

Here’s what Harriet had to say about the character, her own personal brush with shoplifting, and how she learned to become a rapper.

This is actually Ryan’s phrase, so forgive me if he’s already said it! He once told me it was like Gavin and Stacey in Hell. I think that’s quite a good description. It’s a funny and touching and, sort of, furious look at relationships and grief and masculinity.

Yeah! I totally said Twins when [Ryan] first told me about it. I was like, “It’s Twins but with you and Danny Dyer.” Absolutely, one hundred per cent. And the height difference is about the same, I reckon [laughs].

She’s the sweetest lady but isn’t without her foibles and secrets, as all of us have. The core of Kirsty is she wants everything to go well, particularly for her and Glen, because she, sort of, needs it to. Her mum Sue has given her a lot to deal with over the years, and she desperately needs everything to be alright, and she’ll do everything she can to make that happen.

Definitely. She really wants to be loved – I think we all do – and she has a lot of love to give. I’m an optimist, and I can put effort into, kind of, making sure everyone is having a good time. That’s a role I slip into sometimes.

We met when I auditioned for his brilliant pilot called Marvin Can’t Fail. It was so good. Then we went on to work together so many times by chance. Like, we both got cast opposite each other in a show called Scarborough. He did the pilot but didn’t do the actual full thing. We also did Plebs together. It is such a joy. You don’t know how lucky and rare that is to get to work with your mates like that.

About a hundred times I had to audition for this [laughs]. Obviously, it’s Ryan’s project, but there were a lot of people I had to convince that it would be a good idea to give me the role... it got a bit hairy towards the end, I’m not going to lie.

Funny and emotional. There was one that really caught me off guard and, I guess, in a weird way making it about me, or the partner’s, you know, side of things. I was caught off guard by being surprised at how sad that can feel for both parties, and how misinterpreted that can be. Kirsty’s character wants to feel attractive and desired, and if she knew what was going on I think it would be so much easier. But because nobody talks, no one communicates, she gets the wrong end of the stick and totally takes that to heart. I realised – again, as we all do – in relationships how communication is absolutely everything, and it’s so easy to get it twisted.

Totally. I have so many close guy friends, straight, gay, you know, and it’s not something – even though we’re open about everything with each other, sex life, those intricacies within that are somehow still difficult or uncomfortable for people.

Ah, mate, I’d never met him. I have been obsessed with him since I watched Human Traffic. The guy is a legend who I’d had a crush on for most of my life. I just loved him... and could not have been more pleasantly surprised. Not surprised, but you know, you meet people who you admire and you’re like, “Oh, that was a bit disappointing.”

Danny is everything and more you could ever have hoped him to be. He’s the warmest guy. He’s the most consummate professional. He’s so knowledgeable about his craft, which is something I’m still very much getting to grips with. He was game for everything. He’s a really beautiful person.

I was really nervous. The teeth-brushing scene was one of my favourites because it was one of the first I did with Danny alone. I just wanted to be really good because he was really good.

Thank you, that is so sweet.

Very Method [laughs]. He certainly did. Jeepers, the man had so much toothpaste in his mouth, I can’t even tell you. His teeth have never been cleaner!

It was interesting. I’ve been accused of shoplifting before, but I’ve never actually done it full pelt. You know how most people have a teenage phase – a lot of friends of mine got really into it at HMV back in the day. What I took from it is that we all keep secrets, and that we all keep them for different reasons.

Secrets are important, and I think we all need a little bit of something that nobody else knows about. I’m not condoning [shoplifting], but I get it. I don’t do that, but I get it. We all have our little strange behaviours that come out in weird ways.

I was at uni. It was Asda in Liverpool. My mates will find this so funny. It was one of those massive Asda’s with clothes and food. We were there, a massive group of us doing a weekly shop. I tried this coat on, and I was being annoying, and couldn’t decide about it, umming and ahhing. They were like, “Just decide at the end, you’re being really slow.” I was like, “Fine,” and shoved it on the front of the trolley with all the other bags and coats and stuff. We did our whole shop, completely forgot about the coat – I know this sounds really dodgy [laughs].

We sailed out the front doors, all the alarms go off, and these really pumped-up security guards stop us. I didn’t even know – the alarms were going off and I just carried on walking. Anyway, I got taken into this little side room and was like, “I’m so sorry, I can pay for the coat, or not pay for the coat, whatever you want, my mind was elsewhere.” I’m going to tell you what he said... he was like, “So you’re telling me if I stabbed your grandmother through the heart and said, ‘My mind was elsewhere,’ would you be alright with that?” I was like, “It’s not really the same!”

I love Judi Love. I’m fangirling over everyone in the show. I worshipped her on Strictly, and then I worried I was going to be really uncool around her, and yeah, I probably was!

My mum and dad ran a pub and I got sacked from that, from their pub [laughs]. I refused to not wear dirty trainers to be a waitress. I thought they were really cool, my old tatty Nikes. They were disgusting. They put people off their food. I wouldn’t agree to it, so that was that, sent packing.

My brother once punched me in the face during a game of Articulate. There’s a game ban at our house because of the way we behave. We’ve just had to say very strictly, either me and my brother have to be on the same team, or no one will play because otherwise we turn on one another. And also, with my partner, my partner loves games, and I love games, but for some reason we cannot play games together. It doesn’t work, one of us gets irate. We’re actually in talks at the moment about how to play better together. I’ll keep you posted on that one [laughs].

Ryan and I were filming all the car stunts. While we were doing that, we spent the time making up songs about members of the crew, nice songs which we then performed for that member of the crew. All bangers, back-to-back bangers. I got a little bit relaxed, had to reverse the car round a corner, and I’m looking in the wing mirror and I’m like, “Why is Matt, the first AD, screaming like he is in a Greek tragedy? He needs to relax.” Then I realized it was because I was about to hit a massive iron pole. I stopped and it was like an inch short of the pole… it was a very close call.

It really was actually!

In the Chinese restaurant because we got some food, and it was delicious [laughs]. And filming at Ford Dagenham was pretty epic. I didn’t know anything about Ford Dagenham and then I learned a lot about it while we were there, and how massive it was that we were there.

I recently had to rap in an audition, which was horrendously embarrassing. But the project was so amazing that I didn’t care, and I actually got really into it.

For a white 38-year-old woman, I gave it my best shot is what I’ll say. I was so nervous about doing the rap that I was shaking. You wouldn’t have known until I touched the casting director’s face, because I was pretending – this was all in the scene – I was pretending to put an ice pack on a broken nose.

I held the top of his nose, like you would if there was a nosebleed, and my hand was shaking all over his face. That was a low moment I’d say. I didn’t get the job.

Can I decline? Can I save it for a night out? [laughs].