You have to have a thick skin, yes. If you're going to do something as foolhardy as standup, you've got to be able to take it on the chin if someone has a go at you.

I don't think any comic could say there isn't a bit of them that doesn't want to show off.

At school, I was bored with the teachers, and there were moments where I felt they were singling me out.

You spend a lot more time on your own as an only child. And there's space to allow your imagination to take flight.

A lot of the time, you need to find the right home for ideas. You know, sometimes you think 'oh this'd be a sitcom, oh, no it wouldn't, it'd be a drama, or an educational thing, or a doco or something.' I've got loads of ideas and you just have to keep sending them and pitching them.

For me, audio books was about when you can't actually physically get hold of a book, like when you're driving. It's a fantastic companion on a long journey.

Normally, with stand-up, it's quite solitary, you write the material on your own, you perform it on your own, it's all very much on you. Your own thoughts. You have to sort of modulate your own performance.

In a way, I wish none of it had ever happened - Facebook, Twitter - if it had never happened the world would have just carried on serenely. It's utterly redundant and yet we all have to be involved in it somehow.

I realised that the 'future' is different to how I imagined it. When I was a kid I thought it would be a bright, shiny Tomorrow's World. It isn't.

All kinds of things have gone into my shows - cajun and rock bands, Bollywood, Kraftwerk tributes, effects and so on. As long as it services the comedy, everything is up for grabs.