Biography

In the 1980s he worked as a plasterer with Charlie Higson. They were inspired to have a go at comedy when they were doing some work in the house were Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie were living.

Johnny Depp was such a fan of his work that he appeared in the series finale of The Fast Show (1994).

Most of his scenes in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) were deleted. In the theatrical cut of the film, he can be glimpsed briefly in the background.

Used to write an article for British newspaper The Times in character as Ron Manager from The Fast Show (1994).

Has three daughters - Molly, Sophie and Lauren. Molly Whitehouse and Sophie Whitehouse had non-speaking roles in Finding Neverland (2004).

Johnny Depp said I was the finest actor of all time, but that's a bit silly, isn't it - how does he know? I recently did a little cameo in a film of his, Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), and he said, 'Hey man, I'm going to look after you, make sure you're OK.' Never heard from him again.

I feel I do enough straight acting in my comedy. There's enough room for poignancy there. And I know my limitations: I'm not very good at other people's scripts, to be honest. If I'm writing my own, I know what I can do.

You know the thing I liked about fishing when I was 14 was being out with your mates mucking about, throwing bread around, getting a bit wet maybe. I wondered if that could be the same when you were 60. And it didn't feel that different...

At 16 I loved football. But I was also realising that I was too skinny and too wayward, and just not good enough to be a footballer. When I was a child, that was my obsession. Some of the epic games I used to play in the street when I was a kid - I can still feel the adrenaline and the passion and the joy. They lasted for hours, like those medieval games that went on for three days, until somebody died.

I'm a pretty positive person and I get that wholeheartedly from my mum. She's a very, very positive person, almost annoyingly so. She thinks everyone is intrinsically good, and because she thinks like that, and relates to people like that, generally people are nice to her. So it's a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Even deep in the grip of Alzheimer's she's still got it.