Les Dennis

“I've never watched any videos of my time on 'Celebrity Big Brother'. Honestly. It's something I could save for when I'm an old man. It was a watershed, the catalyst to the end of my second marriage.”

“Phil's a lovely, lovely boy. He's 33, but I still call him my 'boy'. He was young when 'Family Fortunes' started, and there's a lovely photo of him holding up a clapperboard for me on set.”

“I got a little bit pleased with myself. I didn't buy a Rolls-Royce or anything like that but I didn't see my biological family for a while. I was getting a bit self-important and they told me. They dragged me back.”

“I hoped doing 'Celebrity Big Brother' would reboot my career: if you can't beat them, join them. It's tough because you want to be known for your work rather than just for who you are, you know?”

“One thing that continues to worry me is Phil's naivety. It's lovely in ways, but as his dad I don't want him ever to be taken advantage of because of his niceness.”

“I made the decision to go on stage after my father died. And he would have wanted me to. But I won't try and plug huge grief up with the false world of show-business ever again.”

“Being a parent is a tiring business.”

“My thing has always been to change tack, do something that challenges me.”

“And if I hadn't done 'Celebrity Big Brother', I wouldn't have got 'Extras', so in the long run what was seen as a terrible mistake turned out well.”

“It annoys me how expensive it is to live in London, but I think that annoys everyone.”

“I wish people would listen rather than rush around in their own world. There's a danger that we are becoming stuck in a bubble and losing the ability to communicate.”

“I wish I'd gone to university. I had the opportunity to go to Oxford but by then I'd already started as a comedian.”

“I'd love to do Shakespeare. I've been asked to do Malvolio but for one reason or another haven't been able. On a school trip to the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford I saw the great Emrys James as Feste and it's always been a role I've coveted.”

“If I go out to a house and it's half empty I prefer to think it's half full. And I trust people. Even if it all goes wrong you go again.”

“I changed Philip's nappies when he was a baby and did my fair share of getting up and rocking him to sleep. Bringing up a little girl will be a different experience for me.”

“I am a big self-doubter. I suffer from Impostor Syndrome. Whenever I start a new job, I think: 'I'm going to be found out.' I don't have a huge ego or enormous belief in my own talent.”

“Every night in 'Hairspray' we will be doing a vocal warmup, so I hope that will improve the muscles. It is a muscle, and we've not been using it - anybody that is on stage, that is.”

“There have been some bad times, some very low points in my life. Doing 'Celebrity Big Brother' was certainly one of them. When I came out my phone didn't ring for a very long time.”

“I can remember going to the north-east clubs and having the hardest time of my life on stage and saying to myself, 'I'm not coming off.' And I would go through an hour's material in 20 minutes.”

“Every city has comedians who tap into local culture and have success but don't travel well.”