In comedy writing, a sitcom plot is basically the same thing: What's the worst thing that could happen? But you're playing it for comic effect. It's a similar muscle being used with Black Mirror.

In a weird way, when everyone's feeling that the world's going to hell in a hand basket, I kind of relax a little more because I often feel like that.

That's not something that we've gone in thinking 'Right! How are we going to examine that now?' It's just when you take a step back you see that they're actually all sort of in that mode.

Seriously, if I switched on the TV and they were showing live footage of an army of fire-breathing pterodactyls machine-gunning people to death on the streets of London right outside my door, I'd be horrified, but not entirely surprised, nor any more scared than I already am. I'd probably just shrug and wait for them to smash the door down. We're so screwed, I don't even know what to worry about first.

"National Anthem" was just a funny idea I'd been knocking about. I initially thought about a beloved celebrity having to do that - and then I watched an episode of 24. In my head, I was writing almost a parody of a 24-style president woken in the middle of the night with a crisis. It seemed more interesting to play it ultrastraight and to have the viewer's initial reaction be one of laughter and disbelief - and just have the whole thing become progressively more uncomfortable.

I'm not some anti-technology person. I think it's often how people would assume that if they don't know me.

[Worshipping God] is like fellating someone who intermittently stubs fags out on your head for no good reason. And we all know how unsatisfying that can be.