Going to a grammar school, you mixed with all sorts of different types and I used to listen to how they talked. When I did my imitations, I could sound like someone really rough, or I could sound like a cabinet minister.

I think you need to have the guts to not use comedy. Often, the people that work in comedy use a joke to avoid contemplation.

I'm a single guy now and can do what I like. As my agent said, so long as it's not a live man or a dead woman, I'll be fine. And that, hand on heart, is unlikely to happen.

I happen to have a public profile. Ditto newspaper editors. It's a result of what I do, not an end.

I try to not make safe choices, but I also like to do stuff which is interesting and is sort of exciting in some way and accessible.

I like comedy, but I like comedy as a device in drama. It's more interesting for me to use comedy to seduce people into thinking about something serious. If you want to hit a beat in a drama, you can distract people with a little comedy, and you can punch them in the gut with some emotion.

But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't.