My wife, Tania, is very big on dogs, so I'm always paying out to animal charities.

Subversion is what I do.

My first professional job was appearing in a disastrous theatre production of Oh, What a Lovely War in Leicester Rep, shortly after leaving Cambridge.

The next step will be for the colonists on Mars to throw off the hand of the United States. There will be this wonderful historical irony. When the people on Mars write a declaration of independence saying, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident...', the US will be rather pissed off.

Filming a pirate film is always good fun, with ships and indecent clothing.

I'm not careful with my money at all these days. I buy people a lot of dinners!

So it became in my mind a nine-carol service; an oratorio and orchestral concert all in one, but with narration. That's something I've learned about, because it's the story that keeps you in there. I wrote a libretto and I gave it to John Du Prez. We normally don't work in this fashion but I said off you go, and he went off for about three months. He brought me back this demo which blew my mind.