Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm very old fashioned. I'm from an era where your phone is in the house so if you are pottering in the garden then you won't hear it ring.
My hero in adulthood would be Michael Bryant, who's dead, bless him. His memory lives on. He was an actor at the National, and a wonderful man.
If everybody was a bank clerk, then I would be a rebel. But if everyone was a rebel, then I promise you I would go out of my way to be a bank clerk.
If you look at the people in the Occupy and tax-evading movements, they come from all walks of life and have embraced that attitude of opposition from the 1970s.
People using a public platform to further their own personal agenda, I think that's immoral. You have no right to do that. Tony Blair is a great example of that.
I can honestly say that throughout the 70s I never watched telly. I can remember 'Dr Who' and 'Morecambe and Wise' vaguely, but my generation didn't watch telly.
You can't learn how to have presence. I walk into a room and people say 'I wonder where he's been?' When other people walk in, they say 'I wonder where he's going?'
Unlike virtually everyone else, I know how to work a room. That comes in pretty handy. If you're not getting any laughs, then at least you can make people watch you.
My father was in the navy. I always found it a bit strange that he would choose to spend an extraordinary amount of time underneath the water in a submarine with 60 men.
I'll take anyone to task about UB40. They were as important as Bob Marley in getting reggae into the consciousness of British youth at that time. I'm proud to be their number one fan.
My father was the biggest influence on my own parenting because I became the complete opposite to him. He found it very difficult to show physical love, like cuddling and that kind of stuff, so I went the other way.
I am certain things to certain generations. Lots of people remember me from the 'Comic Strip,' there was the 'Vindaloo' song for the 1998 World Cup, then it was playing the Sheriff of Nottingham in the BBC's 'Robin Hood.'
I don't suffer from what I believe a lot of actors suffer from, in that they have to do certain things to be an actor, like endlessly study the script and endlessly think about the character. I wouldn't advise that to anybody.
It must have been horrible for my parents to see me go from public school to comprehensive to detention centre to borstal. I was busy ploughing my own furrow, but I must have been a terrible worry to them, and for that I am sorry.
I'd done performance art sporadically from about 1976 - very personal street things on my own. Acting seemed like a natural step from that. But I didn't really want to 'be' anything: presenter, comic, actor. I just wanted to perform.
I was brought up on stuffed hearts, cabbage and mashed potatoes. It's repulsive, when I look back - I used to go to the butchers to get Mum's sausages, and I would cut one off and squeeze the inside of it straight into my mouth. Insane!
I started out in comedy gigging and scraping a living together, and eventually worked up to doing shows at the Comedy Store in London in 1979. That led on to me presenting a show in the early days of Channel 4 called 'Whatever You Want,' which had live music and sketches.
I've been on the edge of everything, like one of those characters at the side of a Brueghel painting with a warty nose. I've been very lucky - I lived through three of the most profoundly important musical revolutions of the 20th century: latterday rock and roll, punk and then the rave culture.
My mother was Welsh and I loved going to Wales every summer, where Uncle Les had a farm. My mother had seven brothers and a sister and they were all very close. There would always be food on the table and uncles coming in and out. My father's family were English and lived in London, and we didn't really see them.
Punk changed everything. It blew away all the dull, pompous stuff that happened before, like glam rock. Kids were getting involved in causes like Rock Against Racism and they needed music that reflected that. Something similar was happening in comedy too, with the Comedy Store and the alternative scene that I got involved in.