I was depressed as a child. I found it hard to make friends. My favourite thing was locking myself in the bathroom and practising comedy routines.

I've noticed that once you leave London you do kind of become a bit more famous. People in London are a bit too cool for school. It's not so unusual to see someone from London in the street. But outside of London people are a bit more excited to see you and come out and support you.

I know some of my parents' friends think 'Little Britain' is in incredibly poor taste. But swimming the Channel? You can't really say anything negative about that, can you? There's nothing better than making your parents happy. The glee on my father's face that day was amazing.

I'm terribly attention-seeking. It's very different once you get all this attention, though. Because then you want to control it. And you can't exactly.

People think writing a children's book is something you could do in an afternoon but it's actually really hard.

I still enjoy my life, and I feel like I've achieved enough things that if I never did anything again, I'd feel confident that I'd still have made my mark in some way. But maybe the self-loathing bit is the element that makes you strive for more. Makes you strive to be better.

I love telling stories. I love the intimacy between the writer and reader. When you write sketches it's over in two minutes. When you write a book the characters have to have a bit of emotional depth.