Biography

In 1994, he was falsely accused of rape and spend three and a half months in custody. During his imprisonment, he was attacked by another prisoner with a makeshift knife, which severed an artery on his neck. He was acquitted over the claims in 1995.

In addition to his abilities as a skilled actor, comedian and poet, he also had a stint as a professional footballer for Wirral club Tranmere Rovers.

In 2006 he was caught smoking crack cocaine. After a six month suspension from Coronation Street while his bosses investigated he was arrested for possession of a Class A Drug. He was given and accepted a caution. He returned to Coronation Street in 2007.

Children: Jack Joseph (born June 1988) with wife Cathy Tyson; Anna-Jo (born January 1998) and Nellie-Rose (born May 2003) with wife Jackie Fleming.

He is a big fan of Prince.

What's amazing is that I'm recognised all over the world through Red Dwarf (1988). In New York City, I nipped into a store on Broadway and the owner pointed to the TV, and Red Dwarf was on! The show's enabled me to travel all over the world too, partly for fan club conventions. British fans are exceptional, but the American fans are something else. Some of them fly 500 miles to stand in line for three hours, just to meet me, then when they do they collapse. It makes you feel like a rock star! Oh, and I got to snog William Shatner when he was a panelist on Space Cadets (1997), in which I was a team captain.

[on the long-running success of Red Dwarf (1988)] When we first started, we thought we'd do two series, which is twelve episodes, of this quaint little curious BBC Two comedy set in space, and then we'd all go our separate ways. If I knew that I'd have to still take Robert Llewellyn's calls 25 years later, I don't know if I'd have taken the job!

There was never any career plan. When Red Dwarf (1988) started I thought we were doing a curious little sitcom on BBC2, I didn't think I was becoming an actor. I didn't see that 21 years later I'd still be talking about it, let alone filming a new one. For me, everything's always been an accident.

My mother was Liverpool-Irish and my father was Guyanese and they met outside a boarding house in Liverpool that said, 'No Irish, no niggers, no dogs'. They left together hand-in-hand.

[on the Red Dwarf (1988) movie that was never made] I spent thousands of pounds getting my teeth done because we were gonna be on fifty foot screens all over Hollywood.