I would never wish to say that I've finally waved goodbye to any character, it's just that the emphasis tends to shift.

No, no, I was only funny on stage, really. I think I was funny as a person toward my classmates when I was very young. You know, when I was a child, up to about the age of 12.

Confronting a stadium audience, you can't see the whites of their eyes. It's just an amorphous mass of noise and, of course, you can't see the alleged billions watching at home either, so the degree to which you are intimidated is quite low.

The arts community still has a long lasting cynicism of the importance, or the artistic value, of comedy. Comedy is just farting about for money.

Marketing is what gets you noticed, and that side of it something - this side of it, if you like, doing interviews - is the side of it that I least enjoy, and yet is 50% of the project.

To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. A law which attempts to say you can criticize and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.

Funny things tend not to happen to me. I am not a natural comic. I need to think about things a lot before I can be even remotely amusing.