Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.
P.G. Wodehouse was a huge influence on me when I was younger, as were Edgar Rice Burroughs and George Bernard Shaw.
My secret skill, if it even counts as one, is saying really crass things that sometimes end up as dialogue coming from other character's mouths. My inner salty sailor is alive and well - the only problem is most of the writers on our show are just as inappropriate, so at the end of the day, it's hard to tell who came up with the line.
I remember when Victoria Wood started to come through, and I thought she was great, though she and I are very different in our approach.
I don't think Stoppardian has a precise definition.
Punning is an art of harmonious jingling upon words, which, passing in at the ears, excites a titillary motion in those parts; and this, being conveyed by the animal spirits into the muscles of the face, raises the cockles of the heart.
I can do comedy but it's a certain type. I'm not a physical comedy guy. I'm not Will Ferrell - there's just this crazy and get naked and run through the thing screaming. That's just not my style; my style is drama or - I'm not slapstick.
Are we absolutely certain that Becky Albertalli didn't just steal the diary of a hilariously observant teenage boy? Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is a pitch-perfect triumph of wit and wordplay that feels timelessly, effortlessly now.
