Lee Mack
Telling lies is the easy bit, but telling the truth and pretending you are lying is hard.Collection: Truth
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.Collection: Birthday
I've realised that my strength is writing around people.
When I tell a joke, I don't think about who's listening to it. I tell the jokes I think are funny.
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!
I can remember weird things from way back, but not what I had for breakfast.
I don't look at comedy as a sliding scale of offensiveness.
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.
We're all basically decent human beings so if 3,000 people are laughing at a joke then it's worth telling.
I know comedians who go on weird day trips in order to have random experiences they can talk about. They'll go on their own to Thorpe Park waiting for something hilarious to happen. That's really sad.
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.
When men sit around and talk, they are very competitive. One person will tell an anecdote and the next person will try to top that. When you get six women together, they share a lot more. They will be far more interested in what the other person has to say. The conservation is more interactive and less about individually showing off.
Neck-down comedy was no longer valid after the 1980s alternative comedy revolution.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 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.'
Comics were always the lowest rung on the ladder, front of cloth at the Royal Variety Performance. What that means is you're only there so Take That can set up behind the curtains.
Everyone talks about the gags, but the most difficult thing is coming up with the stories. You have to learn to do that for sitcoms.
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.
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.
I bought myself a juke box with my first bit of TV money and since then I don't think I've ever really gone mental.
I don't know how I've managed to reach the age of 45 as a professional comedian and not watched more 'Simpsons,' considering everyone says it's one of the best shows ever.
I don't understand why you would want to watch someone giving birth.
I really don't like reality television and the nonsense that comes with it.
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.
I would make it illegal to walk into a comedy club with a tie on.
I have to say I like Edinburgh, but I'm not a big fan of the Festival - I like it but I'm not a massive fan.
But it's true, I was a sports organiser at Pontins - one of a series of terrible jobs I had before I started doing comedy full time.
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?
It's always been my favourite show and I am on a mission to get on 'Doctor Who.'
I think very simplistically.
I talk a lot when I'm nervous.
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.
I've never been able to keep my finger on the pulse of fashion.
The default position now is that comedians do Twitter but I don't know why. Every bad story you see about a comedian has a connection to Twitter.
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.
When I was 24, I went back to the academic life and did a degree in film and television at Brunel University.
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.
I've got quite a few friends in the comedy world as you meet a lot of people.
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.
Not Going Out' is what I'm most proud of.
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'm not opposed to the consumption of alcohol. I'm opposed to my kids watching TV at seven o'clock and being told to bet and drink.
I remember being captivated by Steve Coogan and Eddie Izzard and wanting to do what they did. That generation of comedians was my main influence.
There's nothing more damning in life than a child calmly and coldly saying, 'Are you aware that you're teaching me bad habits?'
I hate all adverts for alcohol. They're evil. All of them.
Yes, if I wasn't a happily married man with three children, Emma Bunton would definitely be my hot-tub fantasy date.
I'm like a goldfish. My memory is terrible.
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.
I like Cornwall and particularly the Isle of Mull on the west coast of Scotland where I got married. It's absolutely beautiful.
Not Going Out' is a pretty neutral sitcom - to quote the 'Seinfeld' thing, it's not really about anything.