JOSH WIDDICOMBE

Successful comedians are just as neurotic as I am.

Comedy has got me all these opportunities and I enjoy doing a variety of things. I can't really believe I've got the chance to have my own radio show.

I'm not one of those stand ups that's going to write a show about a big subject or try and tell you about the death of a parent or something.

I would never ever want to be an actor playing anyone other than myself. I can't do voices or anything. No, it's not for me. There are lots of people who are trained actors and I feel it's offensive for me to do it.

Having a child brings with it greater responsibility. It makes you want to work more because you worry for the future.

My favourite was 'Fantasy Football League.' I thought it would be the most exciting thing ever to be friends with Frank Skinner and David Baddiel.

I wasn't into making classmates laugh - or any of the comedy cliches. I wanted to disappear. I was a nonentity. I wasn't too clever but I wasn't in the bottom group. I wasn't loud but I wasn't quiet. I wasn't a bully and I wasn't bullied.

I moved to London when I was 21 and I needed a job. I'd just done a year working in Waterstones in Manchester and I was looking for any old job. This advertisement came up for an editorial assistant on Dora the Explorer Magazine. Because I'd been working in the Children's Department in a bookshop for a year I just nailed the interview.

Most people I was at school with, if they saw me on telly, wouldn't know I'd been at school with them.

I enjoy writing but I wouldn't want to do it all the time because generally you are not writing about things you want to write about.

I love my wife and daughters, but there are times you want to put them in the bin.

The owner of one club once interrupted my set to inform me that my taxi had arrived. I don't think he meant it to sound as cutting as it did.

The weird thing is I have now met quite a lot of people who are really famous but they are always disappointingly normal and nice. Alan Carr is very nice indeed. Exactly how you would expect him to be, and not that different from how he is on stage.

It's rare in satirical comedy not just to be cynical.

I enjoy laughing at other people being funny.

There are lots of comic bosses and fathers in sitcoms, but the comic landlord remains rare.

Even in something surreal like 'Father Ted,' everything has to logically follow, everything has to lead one to another. The moment the logic of a situation doesn't work then you might as well not bother because people have signed out.

I have never bought into this view that some people have that the job of the comedian is to espouse opinions and change the world - I think the job of a comedian is to be funny.

I'd had a variety of jobs - shop assistant, writer of children's magazines - but had found myself, funnily enough, as quite an uninformed sports journalist so I might have stuck with that, but I would never have been very good at it.

Pointless' - I think it's probably the greatest daytime TV show that has ever existed.

The way people do an impression of me is they use the phrase, 'Who are these people who do this... ?' Then they do some not-quite-good-enough observational humour, which is the most offensive thing.

I've got no pretence that I want to do 'Hamlet' or anything, I know my limitations.

I think when you start comedy there are some real advantages to being single and in a low-paid job. You have nothing to lose. It's not like I was a well-paid lawyer when I began. I was earning so little I was able to sell myself to it.

I never feel like I should have any time free.

The great thing about stand up is you get to do other things. You get to do your stand up tours but you also get to do 'Have I Got News For You.' You get to do a sitcom, but you also get to do the 'Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice.' I'm easily bored, so I like the variety.