Michael Bates was a very funny actor; he'd served in India, could speak Urdu, and had great comic timing.

Both my parents were migrant workers who came to the U.K. in the Fifties to better themselves. The culture I grew up in was to work hard, save hard and to look after your family.

My mum thought my TV and film addiction was laziness. If you're an immigrant, you know you'll never be an accepted part of society, but you hope your children will be, and you try to make them essential to the community in a practical way - being a doctor or a lawyer. Acting was beyond their comprehension.

Michael Bates was a very funny actor; he'd served in India, could speak Urdu, and had great comic timing.

I love team sports - they give me something to focus on rather than the fact that I can't breathe or my muscles are aching.

Theatre has always been better disposed to colourblind casting than telly or film. Given that most television is contemporary, and it reaches 56 million people, I am disappointed there still isn't more representation.

Good diet and exercise are key, but abject fear has its own rewards. And arriving on the first day for rehearsals for Spamalot and seeing all these much younger, much fitter people, who I was going to be on stage with, became a catalyst for cutting out the more unhealthy aspects of my life.