TONY ROBINSON

If I go to posh parties, I hover by the kitchen so I can get as many nice canapes as possible.

The great countercultural movement that we all know from the mid-1960s was epitomised by popular music. But within a few years another shift happened: the birth of alternative theatre.

The founding of Graeae by disabled actors was a huge political statement that you forgot at your peril.

The adrenaline of being somewhere no one has ever been before is, or at least not for thousands of years, is quite extraordinary and by and large that overwhelms the feeling of personal terror.

I didn't have much of a formal education myself.

I've never really seen archaeology as being any different from history. What I love are the stories of human beings that were around 1,000 years ago and how they lived - archaeology is another aspect to that.

I hate the word educational! I mean, 'Downton Abbey' is educational in that you come away from it knowing so much more about that period than when the show started, but you don't come away thinking it was educational.

I was an only child. Both my parents came from working-class families in Hackney, east London.

As a child actor, you haven't been allowed to be yourself for most of your life; you've been constrained by the demands of your job, your parents, directors. A fictional or amplified version of you exists, but when you're 17, you can't have a debate with yourself about authenticity.

I think everyone is fairly fed up with mildly dysfunctional people being put under pressure and then behaving abysmally.

I believe that any politician has to be constantly challenged. It is very easy for the rest of us to seduced into thinking they're smarter than us, or that they are privy to more information.

Digging sand is a bit like digging water. You take your trowel out and it all fills back up again, so there are a whole lot of different techniques that are required.

I was about 40 when I got a glimmer of the wonders archaeology can offer, and I want kids to be able to have that for their whole lives, not just in middle-age.

My job in many ways has been to navigate interesting routes around subjects people think are dull.

If you were going to protect Buckingham Palace, you wouldn't put a tunnel in halfway down the Mall. If you wanted to protected Wembley Stadium, you wouldn't put a tunnel halfway up Wembley Way.

A naughty part of me thinks, how come Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry and Tim McInnerny have all done really good parts in a film, whereas I've only ever done bits and bobs? Before I die, wouldn't it be nice to be the scheming old man in a movie?

I love the Pembroke coastal path. Whenever I've been there, it's been sunny, but slightly bracing. So you're happy to keep walking, but you'll get a bit of a tan. The wildflowers and the insects are great and you'll occasionally see a small mammal.

Always plan, but never plan on your plans.

The confidence in my ability to be a performer, a steeliness about survival... I learnt all those things from my dad.

I often get very tired but I'll just have a good sleep and a day off and then I'm fine to go again.

For a long time, the paranormal was a legitimate area of explanation for quite a lot of people.

A lot of us saw Blackadder in terms of problem-solving - 'Did that work in that episode?' and so on. We were very picky.

There are huge pluses in Scottish archaeology that you simply don't get elsewhere. Partly that's to do with the tragedy of the clearances, and that so much of the landscape has been owned by so few people that didn't want it messed around with.

As anyone who has watched Time Team will know, the context is all in archaeology.

I have a passion for knowing stuff.