People From London

"It (slavery) should never have happened... I know that this tour has brought into even sharper focus questions about the past and the future. In Belize, Jamaica and The Bahamas, that future is for the people to decide upon. But we have thoroughly enjoyed spending time with communities in all three countries, understanding more about the issues that matter most to them. Catherine and I are committed to service. For us that’s not telling people what to do. It is about serving and supporting them in whatever way they think best, by using the platform we are lucky to have. It is why tours such as this reaffirm our desire to serve the people of the Commonwealth and to listen to communities around the world. Who the Commonwealth chooses to lead its family in the future isn’t what is on my mind. What matters to us is the potential the Commonwealth family has to create a better future for the people who form it, and our commitment to serve and support as best we can."

"We’re very lucky. You know, we have lots of things that we are very fortunate to have. You know, we have a house, you know? We have, you know, all these sort of nice things around us. And so, you know, we’re grateful for that because so many people don’t have that. We have, you know, relative stability and stuff like that. And, you know, lots of things that, you know, everyone would, you know, love to have."

"We're just going to play the hell out of it until they can't take it anymore."

"When someone like Kurt Cobain or Jack White comes out, they didn’t go, “He sounds just like Muddy Waters,” did they? They just said, “He’s great, he sounds like him.” When women come out and men write about them, they tend to write about them in a way that other men can understand, which sometimes can seem a bit patronizing."

"We are able to speak for ourselves through our music rather than being defined and put into the spotlight in a very male kind of groomed way for an obviously predominantly male audience."

"Arctic Monkeys are a great band, but bands like that sometimes spend a lot of time reminding people about the shitiness of reality. I don’t want to sing for half an hour, reminding people about how shit Sheffield is — unless it’s for one verse or a joke."

"I love dressing up. I’m from a huge African family and grew up in a really colorful place. The way I dress reflects my environment and wanting to take people into a fantasy world for half an hour."

"It's quite spiky, quite dramatic, theatrical rock 'n' roll really."

"I love the intimacy of small venues, I really do, I like that look that people have that they feel like they're special and they can hear and they can see the band as well."

"I think of the Ramones when I think of music that can save your life, but I’m not so sure about a band like Fall Out Boy who appears to make music in vein or that, at least, doesn’t sound like something they would die for."

"She had two little kids at home. There was trouble shooting that day and I remember her telling all of us 'I want to get home by or before dinner because otherwise, what’s the point?' [...] I watched her stop and price out how much it would cost to make a long catwalk or a roundabout for one scene. I watched her make all of these decisions. That was imprinted on me when I became a new mom. I watched Tracey write, direct, star, and showrun and do her character’s makeup and prosthetics, all in a one-day span. That was imprinted on me. I think she is the greatest."

"Meeting Tracey Ullman and David Copperfield was life-altering. I learned so much. Three of a Kind was a brilliant experience. I stole as much as I could from Tracey Ullman – her characters were always based on truth."

"Tracey has given me a terrible reputation (laughs). She's very clever [...] I think she knows I'm a huge fan of hers. She's absolutely amazing. I'll give her a good slap when I see her (laughs)."

"Tracey Ullman was a huge turning point for me [...] It was so healing, because she ran a sane and wonderful room. She gave everything a shot and set an incredible example. She packed the room with old-school heavy hitters, and then we would go off and come back for one serious day of work per week. She had a wonderful family life and did everything right, and she’s just a stellar example and talent. My time with her was invaluable. I was the baby in the room, and they were lovely to me. I’ll always be grateful to Tracey."

"She was a lovely, very innocent, phenomenally talented girl ... She was not aware of the quality she had. Her performance was so special that it was devastating to watch."

"If Ruby [Wax] taught us how to write funny, then Tracey was a lesson in how to act funny. She was by far the most famous of us, having starred with Lenny Henry in Three of a Kind."

"I choreographed Tracey on Three Of A Kind back in England and I believe that her success in America inspired so many of us Brits to believe we could also make a career for ourselves in that wonderful country."

"Her talent is so compelling. It's like the French flag – you have to stop and salute."

"She's just brilliant–a bloodsucker of personalities. You walk away, and she's taken a little bit of your brain."

"I don't think there's anybody like her, and that's a big deal. If you insist, there are parallels to Peter Sellers, an actor who did brilliant sketch comedy."

"I've never met anyone who has less self-doubt than Tracey. She'll try anything in the world. She'll do anything you'll ask her to do. Anything. Because she's not protecting anything – she's not self-conscious, because her confidence in her ability to perform is extraordinary."

"Tracey Ullman shot like a sparkler into my vision on the set of [1985 film] Plenty ... I thought I’d found my soulmate: a restless, silly, musical wild mimic, with a dark underlay of sangfroid. I loved her on sight. I was absolutely blackout-shocked to discover she was barely 23 years old (I was 33) and I still feel like her (slightly cowed and aspirant) little sister. She hasn’t changed in spirit or matter in all these years that we have remained close. I have no objectivity, clearly, but I am not alone in this assessment of her!"

"I don't use the G-word often because it's so overused. But as far as genius is concerned, I know only two for sure–Orson Welles and Tracey Ullman. She can do so many characters with such perfection. She can be poignant. She can be bizarre. And she is always hysterically funny."

"As we twirled and snapped our fingers, I felt light and airy and fancy-free. Of course I did, I had no bloody panties on! And the cartwheel lift's coming up! And I'm a brunette!"

"Everybody's [in Berlin] gay!"

"I thought, is this what it's all about? Do you have to be blonde and girly and have freckles and a snub-nose and sort of act the coquette in show business? WELL YES!"

"My mum went and married a really horrible horrible man, who drove a taxi at night and had a sticky-fingered son and he smoked cigars in the toilet. Smelled terrible! Again, there's no therapy, there's no counseling over the whole situation! Just married the maniac. And there was a new person in her bed now, and I couldn't do my nightly performance anymore. I was nine years old and my show had been canceled!"

"I'd stand in front of the mirror and talk to myself until I fell asleep, you know. I'd interview myself as women with problems, you know, like, women in documentaries who had three kids and chainsmoked and husbands in prison that hit them! I'd be in the mirror going, [lowers voice] yeah well, you know, it's not easy since Derrin went into prison. My eyes aren't black anymore, but the twins, Tilly and Wayne, you know, they don't stop crying. SHUT UP TILLY SHUT UP TILLY!"

"Oh, yeah, she's that snippy little Brit girl who takes all the parts so no one else gets a crack at it."

"Hollywood to me, I never get the real glamour and romance. I look at an old picture of Veronica Lake, you know, looking glamorous, and I just look at her and think, "Maybe she had her period that day.""

"You see, most people with multiple personalities get therapy. I get my own HBO comedy series!"

"In 1976 I was sweet 16. Well, I was never sweet, but I was 16."

"I was never a child. I was always a menopausal woman within a child's body."

"Why does everyone think the future is space helmets, silver foil, and talking like computers, like a bad episode of Star Trek?"

"They hold onto a small child who's hungry, then go back to their homes and feel good about themselves. That's how I perceive actors getting involved in politics and charities. They want even more attention for themselves, it's in their nature."

"What I fear most is that you will know where the laughs are going to come, or that you will know a character so well that you know when they're going to sing a song. In some shows, you just know that the audience is sitting there going "Oh no, she's going to sing.""

"Every character I do is based on someone I know. I try to justify every sketch we do. If it's not working, we find someone to talk to who it has happened to."

"Working with the same people week after week brings out inspiration. You have to have an open discussion or you end up with actors saying fuck you to the writers and writers saying fuck you to the actors."

"It's very therapeutic, what I do. Other people get this anonymity and thrill from being in an Internet chat room, where they can be anybody they want to be. That's the feeling I get, but to an even greater extent. I physically take on these characteristics. Afterwards, I feel I'm a parrot. I need a black bag put over my head until I become myself again."

"I thought I'd end up in a Swiss sanitarium. It was brutally hard work. I could barely see my family."

"I'm as famous as I want to be."

"People think I'm a demented little pixie, but I'm not 'on' all the time. I'm sensible. I pay my bills. I've never done drugs. I don't drink or smoke. I eat organic. I'm a goody-goody, really, but I can play bad girls."

"I left school at 16 and went to Berlin and danced [...] West Berlin, 1976. It was amazing. I wish they hadn't taken the wall down. Now it's full of east Germans wearing Versace shirts."

"From an early age. I used to dress up and impersonate our next-door neighbor, Miss Cox. She wore rubber boots, a wool hat, and her nose always dripped. My father died when I was 6 and we were really sad, so I put on a show for my mum. [In a mocking American accent] Looking back now, it was a kind of therapy."

"As I get older, I just prefer to knit."

"I love John Waters. There's stuff in it that's beyond the boundaries of my taste, but his movies have always been like that."

"My face is a good one for doing impersonations. I’ve got small eyes, a low brow and a big head ... When I worked at the BBC in the 80s the only wigs that would fit me were Mike Yardwood's."

"American [comedy] was always stronger because you had Lucille Ball, you had Carol Burnett, you had Lily Tomlin, Gilda Radner. I came from a country where we just had Benny Hill girls. You had to run around in a bikini basically in the '80s in Britain. Then I did a sketch show and Pamela Stevenson and then (Dawn) French and (Jennifer) Saunders just shook it all up. But I grew up thinking I could be a character actress. I didn't think I could go into comedy."

"Dignity, girls! Ageing with dignity – that's the thing."

"I really thought I was great when I did a quite serious soap opera for the BBC. I played a nice girl from St. John's Wood. 'Mummy, I think I'm pregnant. I don't know who's done it.' Then I would fall down a hill or something. 'EEEEE! Oh, no, lost another baby.' It seemed all I ever did was have miscarriages—or make yogurt."