My wife likes history and documentaries, but I'm not so keen on them. I generally go and do some work if there's one of those on.

As a fairly innocent teenager, growing up in a village in Wales, I just thought, "God, I would like to go and hang about Soho and write great poetry and try to avoid drinking myself to death."

Taking the humour out of Dickens, it's not Dickens any more.

I'm not one of these people who say how much better American drama is than English. I find it mostly too American, except for The Sopranos, which I think is the best thing.

A distinguished producer called Kenith Trodd actually lived in his office for over a year - the cleaners refused to go in because it was such a tip.

Rebecca Eaton has made an enormous contribution to the cultural life of America, and, more than that, she is one of the most fun people I know.

I was getting rewarded for writing well, from about the age of five or six. A teacher would say, "Look what Andrew has written," and I thought, "Maybe I could be a writer."