Former comedian couple Helen Lederer and Harry Enfield had a controversial end to their relationship. She cheated on him and then he cast her as a sex worker - but the former only has nice things to say about the latter.

During the mid-80s, Helen dated Harry, who was seven years her junior. The relationship ended when he discovered her infidelity. "Harry was very talented, very clever and very kind," she told the Mirror. Yet as his profile soared with his Loadsamoney character, she rekindled things with a former flame. Guilt consumed her when Harry turned up unexpectedly after she had shared a secret kiss with the other man in a botanical garden. "[Harry] arrived at my flat with a perfume named Poison," she notes, acknowledging the irony. "I felt sick, ashamed and rumbled." Her dilemma stemmed from genuinely caring for both men. "At the time the easiest way to avoid hurting either of them was to just crack on with both of them at the same time," she candidly admitted.

Harry ultimately dispatched a "chucking letter". However, they reconciled - several years later he cast her in The Harry Enfield Show - but as a sex worker.

Speaking about the opportunity, she recalled "I go towards danger, I'm attracted to it."

The stand-up comedy world is currently navigating its own #MeToo movement, and Helen has no shortage of personal experiences to draw upon. "Comedy and power can go together," said Helen, the Wales-born daughter of an English mum and Czech dad.

"There's a lot of adrenaline, there's a lot of excitement, a lot of working late.... but, you know, behaviours were different then. #MeToo is a reflection of people having voices who hadn't voices in the past. In my mother's day, it would've been unheard of."

Back in the early 80s, she claimed that certain men also thought nothing of acting in a grossly inappropriate manner towards women.

Helen said: "This behaviour was accepted as bohemian, almost characterful. It was easier to just go along with things. I don't see myself as a victim: I wanted to be a better actress."

"I felt I could go far, and sometimes it was quicker to say 'yes' not 'no'." Yet beneath the forthright honesty exists a more delicate character. "I'm quite people pleasing," confesses Helen, who has been wed to second husband Chris, a GP, since 1999.