The problem with comedy audiences - it's like the Coliseum - when they see someone struggling, they don't feel altruistic towards them. They feel slightly repulsed by it.

I like to read my diary occasionally to remind myself what a miserable, alienated old sod I used to be.

On the whole, you can have a private life and be famous. But when milestones happen in your life like having children or getting married, privacy goes out of the window.

I love everything about books. I love the content, the way they look and even the lovely way they smell. I think a book collection says something about you as a person, and certainly my books are something I'd want to pass on for future generations.

So, my style has hopefully changed over the years and it is more relaxed, and I do tend to smile and have more than one expression these days hopefully - which I didn't at the beginning.

I think people tend to believe that women who are successful are probably neglecting their children, possibly a bit hard-nosed and that they don't really support other women very much - that they're men-haters and ball-breakers. I've certainly been on the receiving end of those 'compliments' for most of my career.

Madness isn't altogether a bad thing in comedy.