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

I started working myself from about 14, really, so I wasn't a burden on my family. I did a paper round and a milk round. When I was 15 or 16, I worked in a supermarket on Saturdays stacking shelves, and then every summer I temped, right through university until my working days started.

I went to a psychotherapist for a year and a bit, and it was fantastic. I went in with a very clear question: I couldn't work out why I behaved in a certain way in certain situations, and I got that answered.

There are occasions when I've had beef, but I generally tend to avoid it, as a nod towards my parents' culture.

On a radio drama I'd like to feel that I had just as much chance of playing Mr Darcy as anyone else because I can sound like him, yet many radio producers find it very difficult to extend their imaginations to employing anyone who's non white.

Alan Alda and his wife Arlene are two of the most life-affirming people I've ever met. He espoused equal rights for women while producing, writing, acting in and directing M*A*S*H; he used to commute between the set and home because he didn't want to disrupt his kids' schooling.

I'm sure I went through a stage when I resented being Indian because in every other manner, in terms of cultural reference points and vocabulary and all the rest of it, I was way ahead of everybody else - so the one thing that set me back was being Indian. And I couldn't do anything about it.