Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today has enjoyed a career in the entertainment business spanning some four decades.

But for many of his fans, Frank Skinner's name will always be associated with a specific cultural moment.

The rise of so-called lad culture in the UK, a potent mix of comedy, music, sport, and sex,

which dominated the 1990s. Skinner was a working-class boy from England's industrial

West Midlands, who left school early, messed around with alcohol and low-paid jobs in his 20s, and then took a

different turn. First into education, he ended up with a master's degree in English literature,

and then into writing and performing stand-up comedy. His style was laconic, often self-mocking.

His subject matter was sexual or tackled other taboos.

He became a household name on TV, and in 1996 he and his comedy partner, David Bedeal, wrote the lyrics to an anthem for the England football team at the Euros, which has stuck with fans ever since.

Skinner is still selling out venues with his stand-up, but in recent years he's pursued other interests too, including writing books on poetry and his religious faith. It turns out his

persona as the ultimate lad was just one of many different public faces.

So, who is the real Frank Skinner?

Well, he joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you.

It's great to have you in this studio.

You are still touring.

You've been doing comedy for three and a half decades. I just wonder

whether what you find funny today is pretty much the same as what you found funny all those years

ago. Well, there's always new sausage meat being produced. I always think of that, that it's

sausage meat coming in from the world and I'm making the sausages out of it to feed the audience.

And so obviously, when I started, there was no internet.

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