Over the years The Stand have been great about giving me stage time if I need to run new material. The audience is always a great mix of attentive and loud and lively: you get that good listening quality that any good comedy club should have.

Yeah, I think Michael has had to deal with that label of being Michael Caine for a long time.

I think a lot of the time you just parody yourself.

I'm very drawn to Eastern Europe, so I like a Hungarian writer who wrote in French called Emil Cioran; he was always good for giving me such a stir.

Maybe this is just me, but as time goes by, I'm more bewildered by modernity. It gets more unfathomable with every passing year.

You have to assume that you're talking to the most intelligent, tuned-in audience you could ever get. That's the way you're going to get the best out of people. Whether they know you or not shouldn't matter for comedy. They should get to know you pretty quickly. and they should be having a good time pretty quickly.