Martin Compston: What is the worst job you have done?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Martin Compston said elsewhere, not written here

There was a period when I did four or five terrible films. My agent said: “Don’t do them.” But it was my month’s rent for a day’s work. One time, my green room was a lorry. It started snowing and it was just me and a plastic chair in the back of an open lorry. It was pretty grim.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 March 2022 source ↗

Others on this question

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Sarah Hadland

Magician’s assistant on a cruise ship for two weeks when I was 19. When I was meant to be being levitated, I was silently crying while pretending to be unconscious as I hung limply off a metal pole. It was bleak.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 December 2025 source ↗

Sofia Helin Swedish actress

Acting, when you don’t want to do it or you disagree with everything, is almost like having sex with someone you don’t like. I had one experience like that on stage, in a terrible version of The Cherry Orchard. I put on a wig, dark-coloured contacts and just hoped no one would recognise me.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 September 2020 source ↗

Monty Don English horticulturist, broadcaster, and writer