But our country's equivalent of gritty reality is more like "Look out Sarge, he's got a shooter!"

I tried to like it. For me, it was like being smacked around the head by a piece of IKEA furniture: it hurts, but you've got to admire the workmanship.

It's not a beard, it's an animal I've trained to sit very still.

I never really thought comedy was a career option, just something I did for fun. Suddenly I realised I was getting paid which was a bonus. I studied for a diploma with the London College of Music, and teaching was something I thought I might do but comedy intervened.

Do not crush the flowers of wisdom with the hobnail boots of cynicism.

Talking of white supremacist violent types, I was in America, recently.

Joke number 1, I have a bit of a problem with jokes, bit of a handicap for a comedian obviously, um, I tend to bail out of the joke, I lose commitment in it, I'll give you an example: Three blokes go into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability.