I always find it easier to portray myself as being unlikeable and idiotic; to actually play a character that is likeable and engages the audience is far more difficult. It's a more subtle kind of challenge.

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.

It’s our imperfections that make us vulnerable, make us interesting. How can I make myself a bit of an asshole and still have humanity about it?

Comedy can be silly and gross and offensive, as long as there's sort of a point. You can make a joke that, on the face of it, is racist. Ostensibly someone can appear to be racist, but if you know you're making a point about race, and not just being pig-headed, then you can do that. I think some people who don't understand comedy will have a knee-jerk reaction to some stuff, and will always be offended by it because they don't understand it. Some people react to it in a vociferous way, which is unsophisticated, but there's always going to be those people out there.

It may seem like improv because it flows quite naturally, and a little bit of leeway for improvisation is good, but you have to be judicious with it. So it's good, but sometimes people deify it. You can't improvise your way out of a paper hat.

The irony is, of course, that many of the values that I was raised with, that I think are very important, that I hold dear, are the result of a religious faith.

Convoy? Michael, you're hanging around with a man who uses a collective term for a single vehicle.