The writer and comedian on dressing up as a badger and conquering his fears on Celebrity Island
Earliest memory
My dad helping me brush my teeth (I was three) and telling me we were moving to Canada for a year. A big decision, really, but they can’t just have come up with it that morning. That’s what it felt like to me at the time, though. Luckily, I didn’t know how far away Canada was.
Best pal in the industry
[Actor and performance poet] Tim Key, but don’t tell him I said that.
I shout at the telly when I’m watching football, and that’s about it. I’d be unlikely to seek out something that wound me up. I know there are people who ‘hate-watch’ stuff for fun, but I struggle to connect with that idea.
Holiday destination
Australia. I can’t get enough of it. I’ve been lucky to go there for work quite a bit, but there’s so much of it.
Devastating rejection
I had a TV adaptation of one of my novels that was really really close to being made by a major channel. The email came in from the commissioner (after months of waiting) and it said he’d decided not to go ahead with the idea because he was leaving the job ‘to pursue his own writing dreams’. By the sea.
Celebrity crush
Red from Fraggle Rock. It’s worn off a bit in adult life.
Funniest day in TV
I spent a day in a full-body badger suit for a Sky 1 show called Wild Things. You had to do challenges and obstacle courses dressed as a woodland creature. To this day, I’ve scarcely met a living soul who ever saw it.
Most annoying habit
Scratching my head, and massively undermining myself with self-deprecation. Which you find more annoying depends on your relationship with me.
Worst injury
I got a collapsed lung in my twenties. I can’t recommend that at all.
Scariest experience
Being out in thunderstorms, night after night on Celebrity Island With Bear Grylls’, while unfortunately having a crippling and lifelong phobia of lightning. In the end, it partly cured me. But what a way to do it.
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