Quotes from Greg Davies

Every time I wrote a school scene, I thought of that drama studio, because that's where I was a bit lost at sea.

If you're doing a job, and you secretly want to do a different job, you start to blame the job. I was blaming the teaching for that fact I wasn't performing. I really felt I needed to follow a comedy career.

The most expensive thing I've ever splashed out on is... a tailor-made suit. It cost £1,400, and it's the best money I ever spent. It's a miracle thing - I put it on, and I don't look overweight.

Every time I travel, I'm in a rage until I reach my destination. I find myself shouting at suitcases, as if it's their fault that I'm an inefficient packer. I've also learnt that whenever you despair of humanity and start thinking that you hate people - as I frequently do - you only have to travel to realise that people are basically all right.

I'm really not comfortable talking about my personal life.

I got to the stage where I physically couldn't carry on unless I gave comedy a go: it was necessity.

I am most certainly not rich. But I am a man who is intrinsically lazy. And I'm more than happy to put a piece of cheese on a rice cake and call that dinner.

I would spend a lot of time setting up an accident scene where it appeared that I had seriously hurt myself - hedge-cutter, ketchup, that sort of thing. When my sister happened upon the scene of horror, I would lift my head and pathetically plead for her to 'get Mum'.

My greatest weakness is... food. If it looks like it's going to taste nice, it goes in my face - simple as that.

I wasn't a happy teacher, but I also wasn't an absolute psychopath like the teachers I portray on screen.

I have no desire to work my adrenal glands any harder than necessary. I like lazing around; it's pretty important to my well-being. But I also get bored, so that's when my culture-vulturing kicks in.

It's an irony that with the physical decline of age comes more mental wellbeing. It's life's cruel trick. You've settled down as a person, you feel happier with who you are, and then you get a massive swollen prostate and have to go for a test every two weeks. It's life's way of saying the struggle isn't over.

I grew up in Shropshire, but I was born in Wales. There was a hospital seven miles away, but my dad drove 45 miles over the Welsh border so I could play rugby for Wales. But as a skinny asthmatic, I was only ever good at swimming.

Don't say I was an inspirational teacher - my former pupils would laugh their heads off. I was grossly incompetent, but I hope I didn't do the children a disservice.

I was a drama teacher, so I had the opportunity to show off in front of a captive audience. I essentially did 13 years of stand-up. Whether my pupils would agree that I was remotely interesting or not is another question.

As far as characters are concerned, Alan Partridge makes me wet myself. I'm currently reading the book and have started talking like him as an unfortunate consequence.

The state of the world petrifies me as much as it does everyone else at the moment. Anyone who comes to my show expecting incisive political analysis will be deeply disappointed.

As a young ma,n I was an absolute idiot. I think my exes would say I was a likeable baby. I had a teenager's bedroom when I was 32.

'Man Down''s my absolute priority. If they give me another series, I'll throw everything into it because I really like the characters. But after that, I'll certainly be getting back on stage because I haven't done a proper gig for two years. Which is ridiculous for someone who loves it so much.

Kids are great. They are endlessly fascinating and bizarre. But I also think that if I had left them on their own for long enough, one of them would have been eaten.

Some friends think I'm dull now. But I think it's great that I'm no longer trying to make everyone laugh in the pub.

I'm 6ft 8in, so I feel like I've got full body thrombosis about five hours in if I'm flying in economy.

Our family were very quick to laugh at each other.

Comedy brings out this rage in people: they get furious when they don't like something. I have some lovely hardcore fans.