My favourite riposte to a heckle is to say, 'Excuse me, I'm trying to work here. How would you like it if I stood yelling down the alley while you're giving blow jobs to transsexuals?'

When I used to do the Edinburgh Festival, there was a bunch of guys selling fresh oysters and I'd eat ten daily - marvellous.

All disc jockeys are without talent. Noel Edmonds - I can't stand Noel Edmonds.

It seems like a contradiction, but the shy person who is a performer actually does make sense, because in a way, when you're young and shy, making people laugh is a good way to make friends. It's an instant connection.

I remember being fascinated by the very nature of comedy from the age of 10; why is this funny, and that isn't?

I was trying to organise my DVDs into a sort of chronological order, and I am afraid that it all trailed off after the Sixties.

It was a bizarre existence I led in my early twenties - that cliche of the comedian who goes out and entertains a roomful of people and then goes home to a lonely bedsit was unbelievably poignant for me because that was exactly what I was doing. I had periods of real loneliness.