Even when we had new clothes, we were told not to wear them. You just didn't draw attention to yourself. Showing off was the worst thing you could do. We could put the clothes in the drawers - but not wear them.
I had a thirst for knowledge. I was always curious about stuff.
My father was a typical Irish father. He was a nice, hard working, driven guy. His politics were very conservative and I was just a very different kind of kid to that. I was very shy and bookish.
I remember my first ever gig in town, I was very nervous. I had a big red shiny face. But that all disappeared after 30 seconds and I settled down and got a great lift from that.
I think my first girlfriend and I hardly spoke to each other in the year we were going out. In fact we never even spoke to each other to formally break it off. For all I know she still thinks we're together. Maybe in a parallel universe we're very happy.
I think a certain amount of depression is sort of a normal state of mind to have. Deep depression is another story - and I wouldn't say I've been quite there, but you know I have been quite down at times, I have not wanted to leave the house for days on end.
They were always my favourite scenes working with Don Warrington. He's such a brilliant actor, he has such a presence, you don't have to act with him you just react you know he's so good.
I was never ideological in any sense, or a slave to any particular politics or religion. My solace and my inspiration always came from books and literature.
I'm Irish. I don't know how to take a compliment.
I was a terribly quiet, shy child. The comedy thing came when I was at university and I started doing stand-up, which I think was a belated compensation for all that time I spent hiding behind the couch.
I'm an ardent tennis player. I'm like an overenthusiastic child out there and I've damaged my back. It's not that it's crippling pain, more mental anguish.
I spent five years in Dublin as a stand-up, living on pea sandwiches. But at times I quite enjoyed the bohemian penniless existence.
Before really high-pressured gigs I tend to freeze and crawl into bed. Under the covers you just feel safe for a little while.
I've been a Leeds fan for as long as I can remember. When you are about five or six, you adopt a team - obviously, I didn't grow up in Leeds. I grew up in a small town on the Irish border, and most of the people my age were Leeds fans, both then and now.
Tony Currie was another great favourite, even if he only played for a short time at Leeds. His wife told me once that she was a big fan of 'My Hero'.
I remember being chronically shy. I came out of my shell a bit when I went to university, but I'm still fairly shy in company.
People pay far too much attention to the television and they're quite literal in some ways. At the beginning, when I was playing very stupid characters, I think people genuinely thought I was possibly quite dim-witted myself, which is a compliment in some ways, as I must have been doing my job very well.
Irish politicians are very accessible to the public, just the messenger boys for the local constituency.
My mother tells me I regaled people with stories but I don't remember that. And she disputes the idea that I might be chronically shy. She says I was the most outgoing of all of us.
When we left university, in the late '80s, one of the guys had been to the Comedy Store in London, came back very excited and suggested we set up something like it. And so we did.
