Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, may have had his charms, but he really couldn't be considered hip.

My name is Alexei Yuri Gagarin Siege of Stalingrad Glorious Five Year Plan Sputnik Tractor Moscow Dynamo Back Four Balowski. Me Dad was a bit of a Communist, know what I mean?

People used to think I was just a shouty comic but I was doing stuff about Sartre.

I don't think I'd ever get thin, but I don't see why I should necessarily think that I couldn't You can't live your life for your routines.

For me, the showbiz memoir is uninteresting - you want to tell people something they don't know about.

I think that my ideas of the world are that it's random and cruel but kind of quite comical really, and therefore the humour, in a sense, springs from that.

The optimum frequency with which comedians should do a series is every year. I do one every three years. My audience is literally dying off.