I was in Oliver! when I was 10 and I peed myself on stage in front of however many people the Palladium holds. It was the stuff of nightmares.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 November 2025 source ↗
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When were you most embarrassed?Originally asked
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I was in Oliver! when I was 10 and I peed myself on stage in front of however many people the Palladium holds. It was the stuff of nightmares.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 November 2025 source ↗
Putting chocolate mousse in my agent’s face. Somebody had done it to me – that thing where they go, “Smell this, it smells funny”, and then they put it in your nose. A year later I was in this French restaurant with a very 1980s-style dessert trolley and, before I knew it, I had a bowl of chocolate mousse in front of me. And my agent went, “What’s that smell?”, and it felt impossible not to … I immediately felt awful and tried to apologise. He, of course, said that he found it funny. But I knew he didn’t.
Going on stage and saying, “Good evening Lyon!” I was in Marseille.
I was in the musical Elvis, and after a costume change I went below stage to be raised up on a platform. As I was raised up, I blanked and couldn’t remember the first line of the song King Creole. I mumbled the first few lines and hoped nobody would notice.
In the 1950s I went to the Chelsea Arts Club’s New Year’s Eve ball at the Royal Albert Hall dressed as a Christmas pudding, with swimming trunks under my costume and holly in my hair.
“You’re not in Busted any more.” I successfully auditioned to be in Busted and then a couple of days later I got a phone call to say that I was no longer needed as they were going to keep it as the three of them. But it ended up being OK.
Complicated, chaotic, messy.
I’m afraid of the dark.
A pair of Back to the Future shoes. They were auctioned off for Michael J Fox’s Parkinson’s charity, so I bid and I won. I am a huge fan of the films and if there was ever a pair of shoes I should own, it was those.
I’m quite stubborn.
People who aren’t polite.
Edmund Hillary, Tom Allen, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, John Simm, Kerry Godliman, Richard Eyre
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