I once played a character called Mr. Jonathan in something called 'Razzle Dazzle.' I was a choreographer of children's pageants. That was something I never imagined doing. It did great in Australia.

Our annual school physics trip was always to Blackpool Pleasure Beach, as it's such a good example of Newtonian physics. You can learn about centrifugal force and Newton's first law from the roller coasters, and the Viking long boat is a giant pendulum. It's good for children to understand that science underpins all these brilliant things.

I used to go badger-watching as a boy, and it's brilliant fun - they're incredibly active animals, and the cubs are very funny to watch.

I took my son to an exhibition about inventing things, and he was so inspired he started collecting toilet rolls and empty bottles for his own 'inventions.'

You need to take a little break sometimes. Then, hopefully, you get some more lead in your pencil, and you're raring to go again!

It's great to do stuff that 'gets you out of the house' in a way - that gets you to meet other people!

I think poshness is very funny! But I think it's also delightful. There's something wonderful and very innocent about it, particularly with the Edwardians.

I love the basic comedy of growing a moustache.

Prostate cancer has taken a lot from me. First it took my grandfather and then my dad.

We all know to eat green vegetables and oily fish, but who does that? I'll have a cake, thanks.

My kids are blissfully unaware of anything I do. I asked my four-year-old, Harrison, what I did, and he said, 'You're an electrician.' He must have seen me changing a lightbulb.

I'd like to have a neck. Everyone else has a neck, but I never got one; I don't know what happened. I'm not asking for much: just some sort of separation between my head and my body would be great.

One of the saddest things I've ever done is download 'I'm A Teenage Dirtbag' by Wheatus and play along with it with my headphones on. Oh, God. If you were to walk in and see me do that, you would really worry for me.

All men in their 40s want to be in rock bands, and I reserve the right to be in a pub band at some point.

It was only in the second year of my Ph.D. that I started acting. I wasn't in school plays or anything; I was in bands, but I wasn't cool. There's no such thing as a cool physics person, is there?

I have always played a slightly ineffectual, bumbly, nice guy.

That was one of the amazing things about Doctor Who. Considering it is such an enormous charabanc, a centerpiece of international TV, it feels incredibly small when you are actually involved in it. It is very intimate, very small; it feels like a few people messing about with a camera.

I work out in the Caribbean for half the year, playing a detective who's really into science. Anybody who knows me will tell you that's a dream come true. But it's tough for my family. We only get to see each other every two and a half to three weeks.

Probably one of the reasons I became a comedian is that you get a chance to control when people laugh at you.

Life is a mystery: you've just got to go with it.

I'm obsessed with coffee.

I can be indecisive about things - and the less important something is, the more indecisive I am.

I adored 'Drop the Dead Donkey.' That show defined Channel 4 at the time; it was so inventive and off the leash.

Everything in politics is so stage-managed.