The Job Is Interesting, And The Task

The Arts Community Still Has A Long Lasting Cynicism Of The Importance, Or The Artistic Value, Of Comedy. Comedy Is Just Farting About For Money.

For Telling A Good And Incisive Religious Joke, You Should Be Praised. For Telling A Bad One, You Should Be Ridiculed And Reviled. The Idea That You Could Be Prosecuted For The Telling Of Either Is Quite Fantastic.

What Directors Of Television Drama Constantly Tell You Is 'don't Act It. Don't Try. Don't Emphasise That Word'. Whereas With Someone Like Blackadder, Even Though He's A Relatively Low Key Character In A Way, He Did Relish The Lines That He Had And The Words That He Was Given, With A Lot Of Inflection.

It's The Demand In Many Ways Of Modern Television Drama - It's Very Low Key And Naturalistic, And, Generally Speaking, The Characters That I've Played Have Not Been Low Key And Naturalistic.

Although The Great Frustration About This [role] Is The Fact That There's One Thing Maigret Never Does, And That's Drive. He's Always Driven, Or He Takes The Train, Or He Gets The Bus. I Was Saying 'well, Why Don't We Ring The Changes For The 21st Century, And Stick Him In The Car?'. [executive Producer And Son Of The Author, John Simenon] Said, 'well, You Can If You Want, But There'll Be Lots Of People Who Won't Like It'. So He's A Non-driver ... But No, Top Gear Was Never A Consideration For Me; And Neither Was I Asked