Bobby Ball, who plays my dad in 'Not Going Out,' is very funny. He has a magical sense for comedy that nobody has been able to replicate.
Lee Mack
My great-grandfather was a variety hall comedian called Billy Mack.
My wife and I have always thought it odd that, on social occasions, couples play the 'hot tub fantasy' game where you're allowed to pick a celebrity you'd like to share a hot tub with.
I use Wikipedia and eBay; I look for singles for my 1950s jukebox.
I do write a lot of stuff for my tours. I think I just want to give people their money's worth. They've paid to come and see jokes so I try to give them as many as I can.
Yes, if I wasn't a happily married man with three children, Emma Bunton would definitely be my hot-tub fantasy date.
Looking back at my school reports, I start off as quite a swotty kid, and then when I get to 12 or 13, my teachers start saying: 'Lee has started to joke around a lot in class.' After that, it's a steady graph of decline, with the jokes increasing and increasing.
Comedy was an easy choice for me because I didn't have a career.
Since 'The Office,' everyone has this idea that comedy is only good if it reflects the way people really speak. But that's nonsense - and it's a problem unique to comedy.
There's nothing more damning in life than a child calmly and coldly saying, 'Are you aware that you're teaching me bad habits?'
When I was little, I used to get a comic - 'Cheeky Weekly' - which was a weekly comic whose main character was Cheeky. I used to get 'Roy of the Rovers,' too.
We have all said things that are offensive when taken out of context. You don't need to tell the public to be repelled. They will tell you they are repelled.
I would make it illegal to walk into a comedy club with a tie on.
I'm terrified of flying and have tried everything from prescription drugs to booze and herbal remedies. The only thing that works is Valium. I don't know why I'm so frightened - I think it's from seeing my mum freak out when I was young.
My kids would say I'm strict, but I don't think I am.
It's funny, because when you tell people you've stopped drinking, there's an automatic reaction. People ask, 'Was it a lifestyle choice or were you waking up in a skip?'
Now and again I'll bump into people and say, 'I'm a big fan of yours. Would you like to be in my sitcom?' And they say, 'Oh yes,' but when it comes to the booking, they don't want to do it.
I was 38 when 'Not Going Out' began, and I was playing a 34-year-old who had a thing about his landlady.
Going on stage is a performance, it's an act; you're playing a version of yourself. I don't give it a lot of thought. I clock on, I tell jokes, I clock off again.
The rules of comedy are, don't complain, it's a brilliant job. You complain, and you're seen as losing touch with reality.
Everyone told me that British sitcom was dead. Then I looked at 'Seinfeld' and 'Frasier' and thought, 'No it's not, it just needs more gags.'
Genuinely my big thing and the reason I'm in 'The Miser' is because I always ask myself one simple question when I'm offered anything: Will it get me nearer to being 'Doctor Who' or further away?
I'd been travelling in Romania. It was 1990, just after the revolution and you couldn't buy anything so we'd been eating basic food. We went to McDonald's and, I'm ashamed to say, it was wonderful. I hate McDonald's normally.
I could have done a night at the O2 in London, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'm not being big-headed, but for my act I can't be talking to an audience of 12,000 people. There's no intimacy.
I never have fixed subjects that I discuss on stage. I never go on with any particular subjects in mind.
The problem isn't that there's not enough women in panel games. The problem is there's not enough women in comedy in general.
I came to London with a girl. We lived together and split up very quickly. I was on my own in London so started going to comedy clubs.
I love buying things I wouldn't normally buy, especially cigars.
If it's not a film in which Harrison Ford's wife is being kidnapped, I'm not interested; he's my hero.
My first recollection of performing was shortly after my parents split up, so the logical conclusion to draw is that that affected me.
I used to tell people I was a comic and they'd be fascinated. Now all you get is: 'Oh yeah, my cousin Steve's a comic.'
I like Cornwall and particularly the Isle of Mull on the west coast of Scotland where I got married. It's absolutely beautiful.
When people say, 'I don't like laughter on a TV show', I think, 'How do you cope when you're watching a stand-up gig live?' - it's the same thing!
Telling lies is the easy bit, but telling the truth and pretending you are lying is hard.
It's always been my favourite show and I am on a mission to get on 'Doctor Who.'
It's much harder to have a BBC One sitcom than to have a tour of stand-up.
For me, I wanted to write a book about getting into comedy. That's what I wanted to write.
There are probably about 50 comedians who would come to my 50th birthday party but I'm not sure how many of them would come to my funeral.
The best comedy you can ever have is when you're in the pub with your mates. You can never beat that. That's what I try to recreate in stand-up.
I'm a huge fan of stuff like 'Planet Earth' and the American sitcom 'Everybody Loves Raymond.'
I've never been able to keep my finger on the pulse of fashion.
If I am old-fashioned, it's not a conscious decision. I just do material that I think is funny.
London's got less of a group identity because it's a melting pot and it's bigger. Whereas if you're from Glasgow or Newcastle or wherever, the group atmosphere is already there.
Neck-down comedy was no longer valid after the 1980s alternative comedy revolution. Everything became about the cerebral. And with that came positive things - it helped get rid of some of the sexism and homophobia - but it also meant a lot of physical comedy was lost.
I can remember weird things from way back, but not what I had for breakfast.
In British sitcoms, you can get five minutes of nothing before the story starts.
From the age of 14, I remember thinking I wanted to be a comedian. But that was like saying I wanted to be an astronaut. It felt like a million miles away, something I could never do, but would be great to.
Before Twitter, if comedians wrote what they had for lunch on a Post-it and put it through your letterbox you wouldn't find it acceptable - but now apparently it is on Twitter.
I would say about 90 per cent of drunken idiots in comedy clubs wear ties, particularly in London where I work most of the time.
Cancun - the locals were fantastic, but it was full of the worst kind of Americans.
