6. What do your parents/children (delete as applicable) think of your job?
Parents are relentlessly supportive - my dad in particular googles my name most nights.
7. What’s the worst thing about being a comedian?
To be honest, I think it's all pretty cushy. I've worked since I was 14 and this is by far the easiest job.
8. I think you are very good at what you do (that’s why I’m asking these questions). What do you think of you?
Could be good, could always work harder.
9. How much do you earn and how much would you like to earn?
No idea, won't know until the end of the tax year. I'm more financially comfortable than I've been in years but that's because my agents are superb and my partner and I went for years eating 24p noodles because we were skint so anything above that feels positively regal.
10. How important is luck in terms of career success – have you had lucky breaks?
Success to me is having comedy as your sole source of income and it never feeling like you're getting up to go to a job. I recall that feeling and if comedy ever gets like that, I'll quit and do whatever I can to pay the bills instead. I know there's that phrase "the harder I work the luckier I get", and I understand that but I do think it neglects the fact that you have to first have the opportunity to be lucky. So, if I was living in the Sudan, or profoundly deaf, or from a family that forbade me doing comedy, I probably wouldn't be here, so in the sense that I get to do my job, I'm lucky.
Also, as I mentioned very lucky to have excellent agents.
11. Alan Davies has said that comedians fall into two categories - golfers and self-harmers. The former just get on with life, the latter are tortured artists. Which are you – or do you think you fit into a third category?
I think I'm somewhere in between? When the hobby you love turns into a job it's hard not to be a workaholic and even harder to switch off. You can't complete comedy, it's not like you become CEO and that's it. You always have to work hard to be better than you were, which is stressful. But, it's also a right laugh and not a proper job. Fuck golf though. I have too many ovaries and too large a chip on my shoulder to be welcome on a golf course.
12. Who is your favourite person ever and why – not including family or friends or other comedians?
Mo Mowlam was pretty amazing. Tony Benn too.
13. Do you keep your drawers tidy and if not why not? (this is to settle an argument with my girlfriend. If you've taken my side thank you in advance)
I try to but then eventually they go to shit. Maybe once a year I'll drag everything out and start again with it all, then they're tidy for a bit.
I have to try to keep them vaguely tidy because I have so much shit in my house. I'm two stacks of newspapers away from being on a hoarders documentary.
