A FORMER North-East journalist is challenging thoughts about serious subjects through comedy and poetry after landing her own national radio show.

Kate Fox, of Thirsk, recorded the mini series The Price Of Happiness for Radio 4 at the Live Theatre, in Newcastle, after the station's head of comedy saw her performing a show about not wanting children at the Edinburgh Fringe festival.

The 40-year-old, who has previously contributed to Radio 4 shows including Saturday Live, Woman's Hour and Arthur Smith's Balham Bash, said she was the first female comic poet since Pam Ayres to have her own comedy show on the station and joked she had probably fulfilled its quota of Northern voices for a year.

The first show, which was broadcast on Sunday (June 22) and is available on iPlayer, examines the growing number of people who choose not to have children.

The second 30-minute broadcast, on Sunday (June 28), at 7.15pm explores where people spend too much on big weddings as the average cost is over £18,000.

She will explain how she got married in a lighthouse, with guests waiting to cross the causeway because the lighthouse keeper drew up the wrong tide times.

She said: “I’ve popped up on BBC Radio 4 quite a lot over the past few years, but only ever speaking for a minute at a time usually, doing topical poems.

"I feel like this is the most exposing and personal thing I’ve done so far, but I’m really chuffed with the response I’ve had."