Comedian Kyla Cobbler, from County Cork, Ireland, began performing live in May 2021 after gaining attention through viral Instagram reels; she now has more than 600,000 followers. In early 2024 she sold out Cork Opera House followed by an Irish tour of her debut show, Gone Rogue, which she performed at last year’s Edinburgh fringe. Cobbler is currently touring it around the UK until 4 December, with two extra dates in the new year. In 2026 her new one-hour show, Not My Lemons, exploring love and the complexities of family life, starts on 3 February in Belfast and ends 12 April in Dublin. She is based in Barcelona.

I love this podcast because it’s two very intelligent women – Australian writers Zara McDonald and Michelle Andrews – whose whole motto is “for smart people who love dumb stuff”. It’s about celebrity culture, and episodes are 40 minutes long, and they’ve got amazing chemistry. They obviously have known each other for a very long time, but they don't always agree, so they challenge each other on the different topics. It’s like sitting with your friends, having a chat. I’m a runner, so when I do my 10Ks I’ll put on one of their Deep Dives. They had one on Justin Timberlake, which was absolutely incredible, and on Martha Stewart, who is the most interesting character, and so ballsy as well.

I'd been to Electric Picnic when I was 18, as a punter, and then I got booked to play it this year, so I went with my husband. It’s a huge festival in the west of Ireland, in the back-ass of nowhere; there's 80,000 people and you're in a field. There's no frills about it: everyone has their wellies and their ponchos on. And they manage to get these amazing acts. I got to see Hozier – it's like gospel listening to him, he's so powerful. And Chappell Roan blew my mind. It was late at night, she must have been bloody freezing, and she was up there going nuts, and had everyone dancing. She was hypnotising.

My husband, Simon, is South African, but his roots are from Tarbert in Scotland, so we got our mothers together and went on this road trip. I’d booked this castle for us to stay in, because I thought it would be fun, but we got there and it was the scariest castle ever. The regret washed over me straight away. It was this huge, old-school castle, super grandiose: high ceilings, heavy doors, everything was made of velvet and carpet. I didn't sleep a wink the first night. But in the end it was amazing – really spooky and cool. It turned out that Simon’s great-grandfather was a joiner, and he actually worked there and had a cottage in the castle grounds. Definitely one of the highlights of the year.

Last year, when I was on tour, I went to a bakery – I'd gone to the gym, so I deserved a cake – and they had a “Take a book, leave a book” basket. I’d never heard of Jojo Moyes, but I just picked it up – the book picked me. It ended up being one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read: it was so empowering and devastating. It’s about these women in rural Kentucky, and they go around on horseback to give books to families to teach them how to read. There's a bit where the main character is in jail and she's pregnant, and it's the saddest thing in the world. I was reading it at the airport, crying, and someone came over to ask if I was OK. And I was like: “This imaginary character is sick!”

I like scary stuff, but I do spook myself out, especially when I spend a lot of time on my own, so I have to choose wisely. Basically, the Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are both based on Ed Gein. He was this guy who lived in midland America during World War Two, and when he saw photographs of Nazi concentration camps, it triggered this really heavy schizophrenia he already had. So he went on to lose his mind and live a life of absolute despicableness, but he was also soft-spoken and almost childlike. I found it fascinating, but I can't watch it at night-time – I have to watch it on planes or around people, because it scares me so much.