How Amandaland writer Sharon Horgan, 54, has broken Hollywood with award-winning writing - after spending her 20s in a VERY mundane job

Amandaland, the highly-anticipated spin-off of Motherland, aired its first episode on Wednesday night. While some viewers were disappointed to see a different show, instead of a new series of the original, a number of reviewers have raved about the programme which stars Lucy Punch and Joanna Lumley. According to the Independent, it 'will make you howl with laughter', meanwhile Stylist said it is 'brilliant, brutal and 100 per cent better than it has any right to be'.

The positive critical reception marks the another hit in the long list of television triumphs for Irish actress, writer, and producer Sharon Horgan, 54. Her impressive CV is packed with hits, with 2006-2009's Pulling (a comedy about three 20-something women sharing a flat) which she wrote and starred in, marking her first major success - though she had acquired some writing and acting credits before then. These included a part in 2015 romcom Man Up starring Simon Pegg.

However, Pulling marked her breakthrough, and kickstarted an impressive career that would see her go on to write and star in Hollywood movies and British dramas including Catastrophe, Bad Sisters, and Motherland. Sharon was born in Hackney in 1970. But her parents moved to County Meath in Ireland to run a turkey farm when she was four. After convent school Sharon studied art. 'I worked as a chambermaid and a barmaid and saved up so I could pay for this drama course at the weekends, while I was at art college during the week,’ she previously told MailOnline.

The first episode of Amandaland - the spin-off of Motherland - aired on Wednesday night (pictured: Lucy Punch in Amandaland). ‘God, what a work ethic! But then I dropped out of both and went to London.’. It took a few years for her acting career to take off, she explained, saying: 'I went to London and worked in Kilburn Job Centre for six-and-a-half-years.’. There’s nothing wrong with that, she added - unless you don’t want to be there.

‘I wasn’t interested in progressing. It’s like when an actor takes a job waitressing, and they don’t want to be the manager, but after three years carrying plates, they’re like: “Oh s***!” That’s what happened to me.’. Why did she get stuck for so long? ‘I can’t explain that, other than I thought writing and performing was too impossible. Or I didn’t have the tools. Or I was afraid of failing.’.

She wasn’t from a privileged or showbusiness family. ‘Sometimes it can be your background, but my four brothers and sisters all grew up on the same farm in the same tiny village and we’re all doing really well for ourselves.’. Maria Horgan has enjoyed success as a producer; Lorraine as an actor who has been in Peaky Blinders. Mark founded a highly acclaimed podcast called Where Is George Gibney? and Shane is a former Irish rugby star. ‘There must have been a sense of “If you work hard, things are possible” drilled into us.’.

Sharon always had big dreams, telling the Telegraph in 2023 that as a child, she imagined winning an Oscar. Another of Sharon Horgan's (pictured, centre) big hits was Bad Sisters, which she created, wrote, and starred in. And she still has big dreams: 'My ambitions are still massive, actually, they are just slightly different. I’m really ambitious for Merman [the production company she co-founded in 2014], I’m really ambitious to make as much as I possibly can and to tell different types of stories in as many mediums as I can.'.

Sharon got out of her rut at the Job Centre by going to study English at Brunel University. She also met a writer called Dennis Kelly who became her collaborator. ‘And so I woke up,' she previously told MailOnline. 'I saw a point in the distance and figured I’d go for it. It’s about having the right people around you, and for me that was Dennis.’. They sent off sketches to the BBC which led to their first hit Pulling, about a single young woman with a chaotic life.

'We were both living in shared, low-level accommodation and doing jobs we didn’t like and in relationships that were going nowhere,' she said. 'The bones of Pulling were our lives.’. Next came the Bafta-winning Catastrophe with the American actor and writer Rob Delaney. The show was a huge success for Channel 4, although neither stopped to take that in. ‘I don’t often sit back and reflect. Every time Rob and I made a new series of Catastrophe we’d say: “We should go for a burger at least, and just sit and talk about how great it is to be doing this.” But we never did [because] we both had families. And once you finish writing something you’re making it, then promoting, then you’re starting a new one again.’.