Hello Podfan. In the mid, early 90s, let's say, I was schlepping around London trying to get work as an actor.

And the only thing I could do that made me any money was voiceovers. And I would spend a lot of my time in Soho.

One day, I'm in a studio, it's not there anymore, called the tape gallery,

and I come out of a door, and I bump into the producer John Lloyd,

he of Blackadder, spitting image, QI, although that didn't exist then,

and not in 9 o'clock news fame, a real kind of fabled figure in the world of television.

And I bumped into him and, oh, sorry, excuse me, I got home and this is how desperate I was.

I thought, oh, well, maybe this could be useful.

So I wrote to John.

I wrote him a letter, humorous letter, saying, I bumped into a day, you know, I'm traumatized,

but I won't take it to court if you just agree to maybe meet up and have lunch. And do you know what?

He phoned me. I mean, wow. I was out at the time buying some milk. This was the days before mobile phones.

And I got back and my wife said,

oh, somebody called John Lloyd called you.

I said, what?

It would be years later that we eventually met.

We've worked together on QI.

When I used to do QI, John was the producer of it then.

And my crunchy nut cornflakes TV adverse, I asked John to direct.

And he did.

So that's kind of our background.

And we've stayed friends since then.

...