What was your favourite childhood book?

There were quite a few. Lord of the Flies, William Golding. The Midwich Cookoos, John Wyndham. Tales of Brave Adventure, Enid Blyton. The Time Machine, H.G. Wells. When I was 12, I read The Star, a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, which is what really turned me on to Science Fiction.

Which book has made you laugh?

American Psycho, Brett Easton Ellis. A much misunderstood book, in my humble.

Which book has made you cry?

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Betty Smith

Which book would you never have on your bookshelf?

Any diet book

Which book are you reading at the moment?

I’ve just finished A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, and am trying to choose from a pile of about fifteen books I have to read urgently. I like to alternate between fact and fiction, so I’ll probably go for The Sceptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. Actually, James Frey’s book is supposed to be a factual memoir, but there’s a deal of controversy over that. I’m classifying it as ‘mostly fiction’.

Which book would you give to a friend as a present?

I, Claudius, Robert Graves

Which other writers do you admire?

Frankly, anyone who makes a living out of writing is admirable. I suppose I’d say Franz Kafka, who never published in his lifetime. He just wrote because he had to.

Which classic have you always meant to read and never got round to it?

There’s a long list. Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

What are your top five books of all time, in order or otherwise?

I, Claudius, and Claudius The God, Robert Graves. I’m counting them as one.

The Catcher In The Rye, J.D. Salinger

Larousse Gastronomique, the absolute definitive cookery book. If it’s not in Larousse, it’s probably not worth cooking.

Catch 22, Joseph Heller.

The Gods Themselves Isaac Asimov

What is the worst book you have ever read?

That’s a tough question. There are so many candidates. Usually I don’t finish a bad book, but there are times, usually on holiday where the choice is particularly limited, when I’m forced to fork out an absolute fortune for a paperback I wouldn’t normally dream of looking at, and persevere with it, even though I’d normally destroy it after page 5. I always bury the filthy thing deep in a dustbin when I’m finished, partly so no other unsuspecting soul will fall pray to it, and partly so no one ever finds out I actually read it. I then try to wipe them from my memory. I guess I’d have to go for anything by James Patterson.

Is there a particular book or author that inspired you to be a writer?

Not a book, but a movie. I always wanted to be a writer, but I had my road to Damascus moment when I was about 19. I was going to the cinema, and, in those days, they often had a double bill. I was walking down the aisle looking at the B movie on the screen, which had already started. It was Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam. I started laughing before I got to my seat, and I pretty much didn’t stop till the end of the movie. I have no idea what the main film was, but that was the night I decided I wanted to make people laugh. One day, hopefully, I will.

What is your favourite time of day to write?

First thing in the morning. Before anyone else is up. My self-critical faculties haven’t had time to wake up, and I can get something done without that voice in my head shouting ‘this is crap.’

And favourite place?

I have an office at home. I tried renting an office, just to get out and about every day, but I decided a staircase was more than enough commuting for me, thank you. Why waste an hour or more travelling to and from work when you don’t have to?

Longhand or word processor?

Without exception, my trusty Mac. When I first started writing seriously, I learned to type from a teach yourself book, on an old Imperial sit-up-and-beg which my ex-partner, Doug and I, liberated from a pawn shop in exchange for a Bullworker exercise machine. Actually, we should have kept the Bullworker: you had to hit those keys with a sledgehammer. Rewrites were a nightmare: change a few lines, and everything had to be completely retyped from scratch. In those early days, we used to record shows from scripts that had literally been cut up and stapled and glued together. When we got an office in the BBC, I graduated to an electric typewriter, which had a memory of about twenty letters, so you could just about cross out a sentence and retype it without too much mess. On Spitting Image, after the first series, we got computerised and I went on a day long word processing course. After the first series of Red Dwarf, we invested in an early Amstrad, which was brilliant, even though the screen was green on black, and when you inserted some text, you could go away and put your kids through college while the document repaginated itself. When we were commissioned for our first Red Dwarf novel, we splashed out most of the advance on an Apple Mac and a laser printer, and never looked back. Using word processing software definitely changes your approach to writing: you’re much more willing to experiment if it doesn’t mean utterly retyping the whole damn thing.

Which fictional character would you most like to have met?

Queen Sadie Whiplash, from Return to the Planet of the Nymphomaniacs.

Who, in your opinion, is the greatest writer of all time?

Shakespeare. Stupid question.

Which book have you found yourself unable to finish?

There are hundreds, possibly thousands of dreadful books I’m glad I didn’t finish. Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz is one I actually wanted to finish, but for some strange reason the last 50 pages in the copy I had were actually the previous 50 pages repeated. The publishers have just replaced it for me, so I’ll probably get to finish it this time.

What is your favourite word?

Callipyginous

Other than writing, what other jobs or professions have you undertaken or considered?

Lots. I was an ice cream salesman; I sold shoes; I worked as a gardener; I worked in a chemical factory, a rubber factory (for one day only. I’m still recovering.) My first ‘proper’ job was as an assistant office manager in a wholesale catering firm. I wanted to die after the first 45 minutes. Finally, while I was trying to break into scriptwriting, I took a job at a mail order warehouse firm, working machines that split up the orders, which were printed on serrated paper, into individual orders. I was working shifts, and writing in between times. I did that for eighteen months. It’s hard to imagine duller or more pointless work. I doubt that job even exists now. I pray that it doesn’t.

What was the first piece you ever had in print?

A short story in the school magazine when I was nine. I didn’t even know my teacher had submitted it. I was thrilled beyond belief. It was called The Old, Dark House. The plot was subsequently ripped off in every single episode of Scooby Doo.

What are you working on at the moment?

I have a few book projects at the ‘could I possibly wring a novel out of that flimsy idea?’ stage. I’m going to have to plump for one of them soon.