I usually roll out of bed about 9ish and do two things: read my e-mails and check the BBC news website to make sure the world hasn’t ended. If it hasn’t, I’ll turn on the telly and go for a piss. Then I’ll get in the bath and wash my hair. I buy basic stuff, but lately I’ve been using a lot of posh soaps. I get them as gifts when I appear on TV shows. Apparently they’re incredibly expensive — which makes me frustrated because they used to give you champagne, so I can’t help thinking of all the drink I could have had instead.

The last few years have been pretty hectic, what with filming schedules for our TV shows and sitcoms, but when I’m not on set I’m basically trying to write new material. So I’m at home quite a lot. I’ve got a two-bedroom ex-council flat in Kilburn and a university friend of mine rents the spare room. When I reached my late twenties, I thought it was time to get on the property ladder — or was it my parents who thought that. The mortgage worked out cheaper than the rent, so I thought: “Great!” Well, except when the bloody drains got blocked and the boiler stopped working. Apparently that’s my responsibility and I don’t like it. I’m not a DIY man — I’ve been here seven years and I still haven’t put up a shelf.

I think part of me still clings on to my student days and that feeling of not having to care about domestic stuff. Having said that, I now have to double-check things, like the locks and the gas, so I’m probably a bit more nancy about that kind of thing than most people. On Wikipedia, though, I’m described as a self-diagnosed obsessive-compulsive. That’s overstating it a bit! It undermines the pain of those who genuinely do keep their wee in labelled jars.

One thing I do have is a bad back, so I try to walk for an hour every day. I’ll stick on my iPod and listen to something I’ve downloaded, like one of the old dramas on BBC7. Lately it’s been the Paul Temple mysteries — they’re hilarious. I guess being in TV comedy was always my big ambition. My first real hero was John Cleese — Fawlty Towers blew me away. Then I discovered the genius of Sellers and I’ve been totally hooked ever since.

I don’t eat breakfast, so by the time I get back I’ll have worked up an appetite and I’ll make something like cheese on toast or a bacon sandwich for lunch.

I also have one of those ready-made portions of fruit you get. I don’t like the stuff, but I know I have to eat it. As a child I used to love all the bad foods like cheese, steak, egg, bacon, butter, jam — the good old post-war diet to stop you getting rickets, but not heart disease. My first school was very Victorian in its attitude to food. You were forced to eat what was on your plate. If you didn’t you were made to believe an epidemic of fussy eating would destroy the empire. It turned me into a bit of a rebel, which is saying something because I was such an establishmentarian-minded kind of kid. It’s no thanks to them I’m not bulimic.

After lunch Rob usually comes round. That’s when we’re both at our funniest. We’ve been working together for years, having met at Cambridge where he was doing English and I was doing history. Our first encounter was when I auditioned for a part in a Footlights production of Cinderella. He was the long-haired, pierced-eared, state-educated casting director and I was the public-school swot, so on the surface we were very different, but we soon realised we had a lot in common. When he arrives we usually piss away an hour in front of the telly — snooker, a murder mystery, all essential research. Then we’ll go up and sit at my computer, bounce ideas off one another and hopefully get typing. I sit on a ball rather than a chair. It’s for my back, but I hate what it says about me, what I’ve become — a bloke sitting on a f***ing ball. Next I’ll be saying I’m wheat-intolerant.

Rob heads off about 6ish and while we do socialise together, we also like to give each other space. I’ve got a few friends close by, so I might meet one or two of them for a pint at a pub round the corner. I no doubt drink more than the recommended units per week, but I’m a shy southern-English person and it makes me feel normal. At least I’m not at the brandy-on-cornflakes stage. With dinner, I’m pretty hand-to-mouth. It only occurs to me to buy food when the cupboards are bare. Luckily the pub also does a nice burger, so I often end up having that. The other day, though, I saw a mouse in it — the pub, that is, not the burger — so I’m giving it a temporary miss. I know how hard it is to catch those little f***ers.

When I get back to the flat I stick the telly on in my room. It’s pathetic really, but even when I’m just pottering or doing my back exercises it has this brain-soothing effect on me. Underneath I’m easily stressed out — I’m a worrier. I have the glass-half-empty outlook on life, the constant fear that it’s when things are going well that they’re going to f*** up.

At least I’m sleeping well. Last year I bought a bed. The bloke at John Lewis said I should lie on all the beds for 10 minutes to find out which one worked best for me. So I did. I was there for ages, nodding off over and over again in the middle of this busy department store. So now, with a glass of water beside me to ward off potential morning hangovers, I climb into my new bed and drift off, bravely hoping that now I’ve finally made it into comedy, I’m going to be allowed to stick around for a while.

Interview by Ria Higgins. Portrait: Mark Guthrie

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of 2008
• Hitler and the Downfall mash-ups
• Britney Spears: The Circus