I feel Scottish when with English people, and when I'm with Scottish people, I realise I'm English.

I looked into studying psychoanalysis, wrote to the governing body and was about to start the year where they psychoanalyse you, four times a week, before you get to do it yourself. I just thought I'd taken the ventriloquism as far as I could. My act is so deconstructive, and I'd made all the monkey jokes anyone wanted to hear.

With acting, I always felt like I didn't have control of it. It was all about other people giving me a job.

If I have a gig in the evening, I get 'the doom' at about 5 P.M., when I think I'm getting flu.

I think I've got it pretty easy compared with somebody who works at a desk nine to five. I'm just working for an hour in the evening. I get a bit breathless, as I have to talk non-stop because of the puppets.

I do laugh when I hear myself saying, 'I am a ventriloquist.' I am definitely suited to it, though. I took it and ran with it quite hungrily. It is not for everyone, but it is just the chance to write for a character.

I make napkins talk in restaurants, socks talk on car journeys. There is an awful lot of puppetry going on in the house.