Pattycake, pattycake, baker's man; good morning, madam, I'm a psychiatrist

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

You could write a joke in the pub at lunchtime and watch it performed on television that evening.

Talent is always more interesting - ambition is not interesting. If you have talent, you have to find ways of expressing it, but you may not be a success in the world's terms.

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

You initially become funny as a kid because you're looking for attention and love. Psychologists think that's all to do with mother abandonment. I think John Cleese has his depressions, and Terry Gilliam's the same. All of us together make one completely insane person.

I've always found bad films more enjoyable than good ones.