The target of quite a few of Katherine Ryan’s jokes are men. Her incisive and cutting takedowns of the opposite sex have been a breath of fresh air for the UK comedy scene. But as the mother-of-three tells The Mirror, her ability to so accurately and fearlessly observe men’s follies and misdemeanours actually comes from a very dark, fearful place. Because Katherine learned a hard lesson about what some men can be capable of very early on - when her friend was murdered by her ex-boyfriend.