I found popularity through self-destruction, and that can be quite addictive.

You don’t want to be flattered and become big-headed by getting awards. But, well, I am.

My name is Michael Pennington, and I am not a comic character.

I’ve always been looking for other people’s approval.

I used to attract a lot of feeders. I’d be quite happy to be locked in someone’s flat and fed liquidised burgers.

I love the way my weight fluctuates in the newspapers. It was 18 stone and then people look at a bad picture of me and add a few more stone on. I think the highest...

I came back from university thinking I knew all about politics and racism, not knowing my dad had been one of the youngest-serving Labour councillors in the town and had refused to work in South...

You know, there’s that temptation in interviews to make yourself sound – well, to give yourself a bit of mystery.

If you write, produce and direct, you own things and see them through to the end.

‘Johnny’ was always a lone wolf when he got on stage. Him against the world, whereas suddenly, when I got into acting, people were relying on me.

I always feel like an interloper when I do serious drama. It’s my own paranoia.

My work’s never been accepted by my family, but it’s something I’ll always carry on with.

Baldness is visually enough of a stigma as it is without a big sweaty bloke on stage pointing it out.

I’ve got too much respect for stand-ups to call myself one.

I think I’m realising more and more that I’ve got a job to do and I can’t be doing the big nights out and working to my full potential the next day. I feel much...

It is easy for me to love myself, but for ladies to do it is another question altogether.

I don’t want to demonise ‘Johnny.’ I was really proud of what he achieved. Especially within stand-up. He was quite a unique voice. I will always possibly be trading off ‘Johnny’s name, but there’s a...

It can be tough as a jobbing actor.

My first holiday to San Francisco in 1998-99 was supposed to be a two-week vacation but I ended up staying five weeks and nearly didn’t come home.

Never try to be witty with U.S. airport officials. It’s always lost on them and you’ll find yourself being put back on the plane.

Oh, I’m terrible at travel.

I’m getting positive feedback for my acting so we’ll see if any other interesting parts come up.

Up North you are holding your own. Everyone considers themselves a comedian.

There’s lots of stuff about me being a fan of Cliff but not being gay. Which suggests that he is, but he’s not. Anyway, this is Channel 4, let their lawyers sort it out.

I came from a very loving home, had a happy life with no great aspirations, but going to the seminary changed me. There was a chunk of my childhood missing. Once I’d realised it wasn’t...

I sang ‘American Pie’ a lot in my stage set. It had a knack of uniting an audience in a sing-along. It’s a clever song about American history but wrapped in a fantastic tune.

My agent once said, ‘You’re not very driven.’ And it’s true. I’m not the type to ring up and go, ‘Get me this part!’

I couldn’t be ‘Johnny’ in front of a camera in acting jobs and behind the camera I like to be ‘Michael.’ With directing, you can’t do it by halves. There’s a lot of reflection, and...

Health-wise, I couldn’t have said what my life expectancy would’ve been if I’d just carried on doing solid blocks of stand-up.

I think it sort of dawns on you that if you’re not gigging constantly you’re not actually relevant. You may be relevant to a different part of the media now, to television commissioners and editors,...

There is something more spiritual to us than what we are on this earth, but how you access it I’m not sure.

You can sway an audience if you win the women over. The gentlemen will follow ’cause they can be so foolish like that at times, they are easily led.

I’ve always said that with kids’ TV that people get stuck in it from drama school but that’s not fair because I know myself that when you go in creatively, kids are so much more...

I trained to be a priest – started to. I went to seminary school when I was 11. I wanted to be a priest, but when they told me I could never have sex, not...

They look outside the windows of their apartment in town and realize they’re not living in a terrace anymore. This is a room full of dreamers who like to go to London for a day.

My forte is playing drunks down the ages. When my agent rings me about a role, I don’t ask what the part is, but what century it’s in.

I get obsessed with decorations and decorating the house. I keep it tasteful outside, but when you get inside it is a bit like Blackpool illuminations, I go bonkers!

I am a big fan of smelly cheeses but the rest of the family don’t seem to be particularly keen on them.

I’d never experienced stress before I did stand-up, and it was a massive shock to my system, this thing of waking up, and the nerves of, ‘You’re on stage tonight.’

You can’t be a proper comic unless you’ve been out on stage and felt the fear.

I always say that the stand-up world is the arena of the unwell, and it is.

I want to be buried with Monkey. The thought of anybody else working with him would be too much.

We all have days where we can’t pronounce things or give it the emotion it deserves.

You get people who come to London, sever links with where they come from, and then when they need people, there’s nobody there. To feel like you can’t go back home would be a horribly...

The cheese board is my big treat at Christmas that I have to deny myself during the rest of year.

I’m loath to use my personal life to promote what I do, but at the same time, I don’t like a journalist going away with no more than you could get off Wikipedia, where most...

I avoid any kind of organised trips as that’s one of my bugbears.

In credits, I’m ‘Michael’ sometimes now, but people know you as something, so there’s no point fighting it. ‘Squiggle,’ you’ll always be ‘Prince,’ and ‘The Rock,’ just accept it. I want to move on, but...

I was loved as a kid; I was raised with more love and emotional support than most folks could wish for… my memories aged nought to ten… are all bound up together in a mesh...

I had a massive amount of self-belief when I did stand-up.