I make terrible jokes every time I go into a hospital. I think it's a defence mechanism.

Good drama, challenging drama - and comedy for that matter - has a place in the daytime schedule.

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.

I've always felt I had to prove myself, and now it has become second nature. When I first went to university, I took lodgings with a woman who said, 'What are the chances of you staining my pans?' I said, 'I don't think I understand the question...' and she said, 'When you cook your curries.'

I might do a fitness video. Actually, more of a fatness video.

If I go anywhere where there are people who vaguely look like me, there is always that feeling of, 'Actually I do look quite similar to everyone else.' At moments like that, I become very, very British. My accent gets more clipped, and I stride around as if I've got an empire.

During an early performance of 'Spamalot,' I left my regal gloves in the fridge to cool down and didn't remember them until I was on stage. They needed to be thawed overnight.