6. What do your parents/children (delete as applicable) think of your job?
My parents died as they were just about coming to terms with it – my father came round earlier than my mum, but he had a sense of humour.  It wasn’t until I did a gig in a church that she realised that it was a more respectable job than she had thought.

And my son is too young to know what I do.  Most gigs, I don’t even need to leave for work until he’s gone to bed.

7. What’s the worst thing about being a comedian?
People who expect you to be jolly.  People who come up and ask you to tell them a joke.  People who tell you a joke – “but you won’t be allowed to say that on stage” BECAUSE IT’S RACIST.  People, basically.

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?
Thank you, Bruce.  I think I’m good at what I do – for what it’s worth.  I am very conscious of the fact that there are lots of things I can’t do: I am a terrible improviser, for example; and I am a stranger to joy onstage.  Every so often I think I should try and work on the things I can’t do, before going back to the sort of comedy I am good at.  

It’s not necessarily the comedy I like best: I don’t think I’d enjoy me if I was a punter.  I’d be more likely to go and watch the Raymond and Mr Timpkins Revue.

9. How much do you earn and how much would you like to earn?
According to my tax returns I haven’t earned more than the personal allowancefor six years; but a lot of what I count against profit is a paper loss only, since I claim 45p per mile for travelling (when I have a hybrid car that is considerably more fuel-efficient than HMRC’s assumptions suppose) and virtually all my hobbies (books, CDs, DVDs) are legitimate business expenses and tax-deductible…  This is a technique I learned as a lawyer, boring your way out of embarrassing questions.

I’d like to earn as much as my wife.  Purely for leverage in arguments.

10. How important is luck in terms of career success – have you had lucky breaks?
None whatsoever.  

I know one is supposed to be modest about one’s success, and ascribe it to luck – but I’ve only had modest career success.  In my personal life, on the other hand, I’m very lucky – I have a brilliant wife, and a wonderful son – and to be honest that’s the place where I’d rather have the luck.  

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 started off as a tortured artist, but I’m learning – very slowly – to get on with life.  And, much to my surprise, I’ve becoming a better “artist” by not self-harming so much.

12. Who is your favourite person ever and why - not including family or friends or other comedians?

I’m a huge fan of the eighteenth-century pamphleteer and legal activist Granville Sharp – my son’s middle name is Granville; my wife vetoed it as a first name – who, pretty much single-handed, brought about the abolition of slavery in England.  He was opposed by the entire English legal establishment of the time – so yes, I can relate.  The “owner” of the slave in Somerset’s case – brought by Sharp in 1772 – lived in Baldwin’s Gardens, off Chancery Lane, which is where my old law firm was based.  That fact always pleased me.

13. Do you keep your drawers tidy and if not why not?

Of course not.  Tidying means putting things in drawers; if you start tidying the drawers themselves, you’ll get caught in an infinite tidying regress…  You know, there’s a reason these questions are rarely asked, isn’t there?