Everything’s temporary, and how to make aioli.

Be generous and kind. Honestly, those two things did everything for me.

You’ve got to keep trying because you don’t know what amazing things are round the corner. Also, always be grateful – at one point you wished to be where you are today.

When something is half price in a supermarket, always find out why.

Their clothes' lines. The oil crisis could be solved if people didn't use dryers.

I spent years trying to work out the secret of acting. I read all the books by the great teachers and got nowhere. They were so busy making it sound complex. I just couldn’t figure it out. Then one day my acting coach in LA told me to ‘think before you act’. It was so simple – when you are acting don’t just speak the words, but concentrate and think about what you are going to say all the time. It worked for me.

My tendency to be inappropriate.

Breathlessness.

I have never been happier than I am now. As for when I was happiest in my work, playing King Arthur in Spamalot in the West End.

As a kid I used to fantasize about being Clayton Moore, the masked hero in The Lone Ranger. I’m much too old to play him now – I’d have to be the baddie who he kills – although I do have a horse as King Arthur, well someone clopping along behind me with a pair of coconuts.