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.

Got my fungal foot powder? Ah, it's a lifesaver, you know. I'd effectively be disabled if it weren't for these.

All drama teachers are very effusive, very emotionally open, very big, and gesticulate a lot, and are very physical. Those people don't work in banks and they don't work for pharmaceutical companies. They teach drama, or they may be theatre directors. That's why I love people who are openly gay in theatre, because they have license to do what they like, and there's a kind of artistic liberal tolerance thing that goes on.

What I don't like is dance music or hip hop or any of that sort of thing.

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

I never had any desire to be famous. I find people who do really sad. I genuinely feel sorry for them because there is nothing of substancein their lives. I am happy when I am writing or performing. Not when I sit there being "famous". I like recognition for my work, but not recognition for being "that bloke off the telly". It is genuinely humbling when a woman comes up to me, as someone did recently, to say she wanted to commit suicide after her husband died, and my show cheered her up and made her feel better. That's great.

I'm a huge fan of Jack Lemmon, he was someone who managed to tread that line between comedy and tragedy and sometimes give very big performances, but they were never over-demonstrative and they were never not based on a kind of real truthful human being.