Quotes

I loved all the camp comics of my childhood, Kenneth Williams and Frankie Howerd and John Inman, but school gave me a very bad feeling about being gay and then, when I was about 12 - bang, along came AIDS. I can't think of a single positive thing about being gay at that time.

I met Boy George in a club and he asked me if I'd play Leigh Bowery, presumably because I'm bald and fat. I'd make my entrance to a lovely song called 'Don't Knock It 'Til You've Tried It', which is about cottaging, a big part of Leigh's life. He wasn't fussed what you looked like, and I really think that's something to celebrate.

With contestants generally ranging from 16 to the mid 20s, the beauty contest was enormously popular entertainment and one of the few talent show formats we've not tried to bring back... yet.

In the Sixties we could smoke to our lungs' discontent more or less anywhere we liked.

In the Seventies, the pocket calculator was an object of desire. As was Valerie Singleton, though she was slightly harder to write the word boobs on.

I grew up watching Worzel Gummidge (1979) and so, after Little Britain (2003), which was so rude, I wanted to do a show that actually the whole family could watch and enjoy and that people wouldn't tell me off in the streets for corrupting their kids.

Pingu (1980) is my favourite TV show and I loved the way they used gibberish in that.

[on Pompidou (2015)] It's a bit of Pingu (1980), it's a bit of Worzel Gummidge (1979), it's a bit of Mr. Bean (1990), it's all those things.

I grew up watching Worzel Gummidge (1979) and I loved the physicality of what Jon Pertwee did.