Because of the Thames I have always loved inland waterways - water in general, water sounds - there's music in water. Brooks babbling, fountains splashing. Weirs, waterfalls; tumbling, gushing.

I don't think today's younger audience... would even know what 1920s musicals were like.

All careers go up and down like friendships, like marriages, like anything else, and you can't bat a thousand all the time.

I've got a good right hook.

I am told that the first comprehensible word I uttered as a child was 'home.

I am very proud to be British. I'm very conscious of carrying my country with me wherever I go. I feel I need to represent it well.

I'd like to be an original, to be myself and not a pale copy of anyone else.