Comedians From England

"People always say: "You're a comedian, tell us a joke." They don't say: "You're an MP, tell us a lie.""

"I can still enjoy sex at 74 - I live at 75, so it's no distance."

"No one watched it, not even the cameramen"

"The last time I was in Spain I got through six Jeffrey Archer novels. I must remember to take enough toilet paper next time."

"In the end, people have to learn to live together. That is what I didn't like about America — it is so homogeneous. I like places where there are people who are different culturally, physically, in every way. And I like to see how they succeed in living together."

"I like the Coen brothers. Their films are smart and disturbing. I am very impressed by what George Clooney is doing now. He is very political. I like the fact that he did Oceans Eleven and Oceans Twelve, made all that money and then leveraged the money and his success into interesting projects. Johnny Depp has also set up a production company and is showing an interest in risky projects that will not be easy. I am sorry that it is hard for the average person, and even for an above-average person, to see a film that is not a Hollywood production. You see those films only in the festivals. There are few people there. That is worrying. People don't think. My goal in work is to make them think. The media do the opposite."

"I went to university on a scholarship that was funded by a church. I was on the way to becoming a Presbyterian missionary. In the end I left school. The reason was that I used to tell jokes about God and the people around me did not like the jokes. I asked them, What kind of God is this who can't cope with my lousy jokes? What kind of God feels threatened by these jokes? So I left. And the truth is that this is exactly what I have to say about the present situation. Everything has become too political and it is ludicrous. I understand why they are upset, but it has reached an absurd pass and the Muslims are only hurting themselves."

"I think there's a side of me that's trying to compete with Lucas and Spielberg — I don't usually admit this publicly — because I tend to think that they only go so far, and their view of the world is rather simplistic. What I want to do is take whatever cinema is considered normal or successful at a particular time and play around with it — to use it as a way of luring audiences in."

"Nobody went to see Tideland! I was hoping people would get angry about it but those that saw it didn't want to talk about it. This is the world we're living in, people don't want to discuss things that are actually worth discussing."

"I am quite bored nowadays. I don't know if it's age and the fact that I have seen so many things and am less surprised, or whether the problem is truly the content. But things have been repeating themselves for 30-40 years already. It seems to me that there is no desire to push the envelope or even to peek there. People are afraid. In the 1960s and 1970s we pushed the limits farther. More attention was paid to what was going on around. Television and the media are everywhere and they are taking over so powerfully. They don't shut up for a second. So you are unable to think. It is very difficult to think independently when you are surrounded by all that noise. What I most aspire to is to be alone. Not lonely, but alone. To stop all this noise. That is what I do when I go to Umbria. There is no television there, no telephone. The situation is especially serious with television. The money is dispersed among hundreds of stations so that no money is left for good things. In our time there was far greater depth. Not everything is artificial and as cheap as possible. Everyone gossips on television; it's all so trivial and it's impossible to hear anything."

"[Steven Spielberg's films] are comforting, they always give you answers and I don't think they're very clever answers. … The success of most Hollywood films these days is down to fact that they're comforting. They tie things up in nice little bows and give you answers, even if the answers are stupid, you go home and you don't have to think about it. … The great filmmakers make you go home and think about it."

"I’ve always liked gossip, gossip is fun, but whether you believe it or not is something else, and yet the web seems to want to believe. The web doesn’t distinguish between what’s playful and serious. And the speed! What is happening in the web, and all the tweeters tweeting, they become neurons. They are the neurons of the global village. Village is the right word because the village is where the gossip is taking place, it doesn’t take place in the cities. A piece of information comes into that little neuron – whoop – and they’ve immediately got to pass it across the synaptic gap…"

"People in Hollywood are not showmen, they're maintenance men, pandering to what they think their audiences want."

"Nooo! Leave that to George Lucas, he' s really mastered the CGI acting. That scares me! I hate it! Everybody is so pleased and excited by it. Animation is animation. Animation is great. But it's when you're now taking what should be films full of people, living thinking, breathing, flawed creatures and you're controlling every moment of that, it's just death to me. It's death to cinema, I can't watch those Star Wars films, they're dead things."

"Well, I really want to encourage a kind of fantasy, a kind of magic. I love the term magic realism, whoever invented it — I do actually like it because it says certain things. It's about expanding how you see the world. I think we live in an age where we're just hammered, hammered to think this is what the world is. Television's saying, everything's saying "That's the world." And it's not the world. The world is a million possible things."

"We read Dover Books, because you can steal from them. The medieval imagery and iconography is so good for the imagination. Trying to describe the world, trying to describe the cosmos, trying to put it down in neat orderly fashion, unlike reality. And it always seems to stick in one's mind more than reality does."

"It's an abominable place. If there was an Old Testamental God, he would do his job and wipe the place out. The only bad thing is that some really good restaurants would go up as well."

"The underground press was convinced that I was a junkie, an acid head. … But I don't do drugs. I don't like being fucked up. I've got enough bizarre chemicals floating around in my head. I'm just naturally like this."

"There comes a part where the money and the creative elements all come crashing together. Everybody's under a lot of pressure, and everybody is panicking about what works and what doesn't. And the studios and the money always have one perspective and the creative people have another one, and usually what happens is a lot of compromises get made. I decided not to. I walked off and did Tideland and came back six months later."

"The Brothers Grimm came along and I was so desperate for work … Actually I've got to say that I like the movie, I won't apologize for it."

"We were devastated. We spent the whole day — Amy Gilliam, Nicola Pecorini, the director of photography, and myself — lying flat on the floor. Heath Ledger's dead, and you don't quite get over that. I suppose I'm in an interesting position because while I'm cutting the film I'm basically working with him every day and he's fine; he's in good shape. Ideas are floating around. Then finally we decided, 'OK, let's get three other people to take over the part'. And we were lucky because we have a magic mirror in this movie. Not every movie has a magic mirror. So you can very genuinely say that these other actors are different aspects of the character that Heath plays. And it works. The point was, we've got to keep going. It was a bit like half being there, but apparently on autopilot I can still do a few things."

"If John Logie Baird had been born in 1971 would he have been a genius? The only thing we know with any certainty is that he wouldn't have invented the television. Some people believe he would have still established his genius; that he would have simply found another arena in which to work. I disagree. I think he would have been distracted from such brainy pursuits by all that television."

"[About becoming a kid's TV presenter] Could you not interrupt Mr. Penguin?!"

"[On paying the toll at the Severn Bridge] It's worth £5.40 to have that moment where you stop, then you come through and there are no lanes! It takes a very strange sort of man who doesn't go: 'The race is on! Come on, woohoo! First one to the lanes!! Order, order, back in order OK but I had fun while it lasted."

"[on Valentine's cards] Just last week I wrote "I still love you. See last year's card for full details.""

"I went "0-7..." and he actually went "Slow down!" So I went "0..." and he went "0-7-0..." "No! 0-7..." "0-7-0-0-7..." "No! 0...7..." "0-7-0-0-7-0-7" "Start again!" "How's Susan?" "Not the conversation, the number! That's not my number!" "Giving me a fake number?! Don't you want me to call?!" "No, no...!" Anyway, he hasn't called."

"[Scottish accent] "We don't need your English bastard pounds! We're our own country, we'll have our own bloody money, eh?!" "Would you like your own currency?" "Ah, it's complicated mathematically. Let's just have yours with our photos, I think that's the best way!""

"[imitating a scottish person] (on Scottish money) I think you'll find pal, that's legal tender."

"And traffic! Traffic's a nightmare! That's how people describe it, a nightmare. Has anyone had this nightmare? "AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!" "What is it, darling? Are you all right?" "No, I'm not all right at all!" "What was it?" "TRAFFIC!!!""

"See, you learn about humans when you have a baby. Like girls. Girls are so much more advanced than boys. I seriously think that girls are born in conversation. Like, they come out of the womb, talking: "Are you my mother? Lovely to put a face to a name.""

"My son's got two words: "car" and "map", that's all he can say. [baby voice] "Car, car, map, car!" [normal voice] I'm fairly worried he's trying to escape. So if the next word is "passport," we're in serious trouble."

"[about travelling by train]"Please let the passengers off the train first." British people have an amazing ability to let people off a train whilst at all times, moving forwards."

"And everyone's reading, you have to read, you can't be on the tube without reading, reading is very important. You get on on the morning and every single person is reading the Metro. Everyone, everyone. [imitates line of people reading newspaper] Why doesn't one person just read it to the carriage?"

"So hello! I'm good at hello, I'm not very good with goodbye, especially on the phone. I don't know what's happened, every time I say goodbye I sound like a fucking idiot. What is it? You sound like a child, you feel it coming when you're on the phone. It can be a very serious conversation "of course I'll be at the funeral, I loved your father deeply, I'll say a few words. [high pitched] Byeeeeee!" Why am I doing that?"

"[about public transport] It's unbelievable. People are so desperate to get home. The trains come very regularly, you see them, one minute, two minutes, three minutes... this means nothing to people. As soon as you get on the platform it's a level playing field. I don't care when you arrived, I'm getting on this train."

"I take the shopping in, ladies and gentlemen... in one fucking go. [mimics weighing himself down with shopping] "Get the door! Get the door!" She's like, "Shoes off!"… "FUCK OFF!""

"Scottish Guy heckled... "You're a bastard, Michael." … Oh I might not be, but I know that's the first word of a newborn Scottish baby!"

"People still, old people, insist on picking up the phone and saying their home number, why are you doing that? What a complete waste of time. [imitating old person] "020767944!" [exasperated person on other end] "I know that, I've just dialled it! It's the last thing I did on earth was dial those numbers. Do you open the front door and say your address? It's the same principle.""

"It's never enough to say you’re from London, people want to know exactly where you’re from. They see it as more of a test of their own geographical knowledge. You say "I’m from London" people go [high pitched excited voice] "Where abouts, where abouts, where abouts, where abouts exactly, where abouts?" "Uh... North London." If they know it they get more excited. [more excited voice] "Where abouts, where abouts, where abouts?" "Muswell Hill" [even more excited voice] "Where abouts? Where abouts?!" "Do you know Sainsbury’s?" "Yeeeeeeessssssssss!""

"[imitates a terrorist] "We must penetrate the west at their most vulnerable spot: Glasgow Airport!" [shakes head] I think the lesson was learned: don't... fuck... with Scottish people... who have a holiday booked, okay? [imitates Scottish tourist] "I'll get the trolley. You get the bags and stuff. We'll get the rest of the stuff at duty-free. You got our tickets and the passports? What gate are we? Twenty... two. Hold on while I punch this burning man in the face. Fuck off! Bastard! Majorca, here we come! Ten days, I couldn't afford two weeks! Hang on while I just get a light off his face! Hold still, you Al-Qaeda bastard! Where you from?" "Afghan.." "Whereabouts?""

"[When asked if he would advocate stalking one's favourite comedian in the hope that one gets to form an award-winning double-act with them and become world famous]"

"[When asked if he sees the future with people wearing shirts with his face on it]"

"I'd like to punch out a really old lady. There'd be no repercussions."

"I've always had my suspicions about moss."

"[When suggested he could have invented crisps] I couldn’t have invented crisps. [...] I don't really want to be known as the man who invented crisps. [...] I invented apples. [...] I invented pandas, and caps. I invented soil."

"[When asked if he could think of a cure for a dog who eats soil]"

"I had a garter snake named Clayton."

"I don’t think I’d have done comedy if I was born eighty years ago [...] I’d have been a lord. Shooting people that were on my land [...] With a wig, yeah. And some crisps."

"[When asked if he has a favorite woodland creature]"

"[When asked if he varies the animals in his comedy depending on where he performs]"