I never thought I want to do anything, really, except not go to work properly and turn up at the same place every day and eat sandwiches in the same canteen, if I can possibly help it, as I don't think I'd be very good at it.

Everybody is corrupted by hotel rooms. You can't help it. It's the only place in the world where you walk in and the first think you do is steal everything before you take your coat off.

I'm just a guy who happens to work in public from time to time. I've built a reputation as an established comic, not as a celebrity - a celebrity is someone who is famous but doesn't do anything.

I'd be hard-pressed to think of anybody who's made me laugh, who's funny, but who's also relentlessly positive.

When did you ever hear of a child not in need? 'Oh that's enough jam tart for me, I'll just go now and clean the toilets.'

I think of myself as a theatre comic instead of club comic because I tend to talk for a bit before I start being funny. I don't really do the one-liners and five second bits or whatever. But it's good to work stuff out sometimes.

You try various things when you're growing up. I was an attache in the Foreign Service for a while and then I drove a bulldozer, but neither of those panned out for me so it had to be stand-up.