It's sad, the lottery. Good projects get funded by it, but there's an air of desperation about it.

Lottery tickets are a surtax on desperation.

I looked into studying psychoanalysis, wrote to the governing body and was about to start the year where they psychoanalyse you, four times a week, before you get to do it yourself. I just thought I'd taken the ventriloquism as far as I could. My act is so deconstructive, and I'd made all the monkey jokes anyone wanted to hear.

I was really awful at auditions. There's something about sitting down and saying into the camera: 'I'm Nina and this is the name of my agent.' That makes me just die inside.

I think I've got it pretty easy compared with somebody who works at a desk nine to five. I'm just working for an hour in the evening. I get a bit breathless, as I have to talk non-stop because of the puppets.

I could never be on stage on my own. But puppets can say things that humans can't say.