The nice thing about 'Miranda' especially is that the audience that we had was school kids right through to pensioners. It seems to be a show that people watch as a family, so it was the first job I've been involved in that certainly my oldest daughter and my middle daughter are big fans of, and proud that I'm in it, which is a nice feeling.

You're always asking yourself, are you doing the best for your child? And other parents let you know if you're not, just not in a direct way. There's a sense of competition, which is ridiculous because you know deep down you're all suffering.

Both my daughters are both so unimpressed when they see me on television. I want them to say, 'Oh, Dad!' But I say, 'Who's that?' and they say 'Dad' with no real interest, even if I'm wearing a long wig and riding on a horse! I think I'll have to read a 'CBeebies' bedtime story instead.

My mum was a music teacher. I've got three sisters, and we all played instruments when we were kids.

Everybody in my family had a real sick, twisted sense of humor. Most of the jokes we make in our house, we would just never even dream of making anywhere else. Just sick, horrible stuff. That wasn't anything new to college.

Funny is as funny does, and funny puts on a walrus mask and slowly gyrates in a mall food court. I laugh at absurdity hardest, then stories, then observations, then bearded men on roller skates.

Only recently - about five minutes ago, relative to the long-running human comedy - have parents been driving themselves to distraction by taking too seriously the idea that 'as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.'

I was never a joke teller. I don't even like jokes, for the most part. I don't like to hear them, and rarely can I even remember one.