Everyone talks about the gags, but the most difficult thing is coming up with the stories. You have to learn to do that for sitcoms.

I'm like a goldfish. My memory is terrible.

I feel that I'm a stand-up comedian more than anything else, that's my job.

Comics were always the lowest rung on the ladder, front of cloth at the Royal Variety Performance. What that means is you're only there so Take That can set up behind the curtains.

My joke used to be about my father and Peter Boyle: that anything you see Peter Boyle do on TV, my father has done in real life without pants on.

Awkwardness is such a gold mine for comedy.

I don't really know, I was thinking about that the other day that there aren't a lot of younger up and comers that I'm that interested in, in the comedy world. Everyone seems to be trying to play it safe.

The fine line between roaring with laughter and crying because it's a disaster is a very, very fine line. You see a chap slip on a banana skin in the street and you roar with laughter when he falls slap on his backside. If in doing so you suddenly see he's broken a leg, you very quickly stop laughing and it's not a joke anymore.