Steve Coogan

Knowing me Dan Rookwood, knowing you Steve Coogan. Oh God.

Sorry. Ever been to Sydney before? No. I want to go see Sydney Opera House, get bitten by a shark, you know, the normal tourist clichés. I'm going to travel as far as I can in between each gig each day but I know that I have to get back each day in time for the show so I can't got too far. It's a bit like being electronically tagged.

Three of your four Enmore shows have already sold out. What can people expect to see? It's a bastardised show of some of my characters that I've made specifically for Sydney Comedy Festival. I do four characters: three in the first half and one in the second. In the first half I do Paul and Pauline Calf and Tony Ferrino, who is a Portuguese singer. The second half is dedicated to Alan Partridge. He'll be doing a low-rent version of a lifestyle-guru lecture that he's seen in America, trying to impart some wisdom that's changed his life.

Is it true you're doing an Alan Partridge film? Ah yes, that is still a rumour but it may become a reality in the near future.  We're having talks about talks at the moment but it's looking positive.

There's also talk of an Eddie the Eagle film as well. That's online mythology.

What's the most ridiculous rumour you've ever heard about yourself? That I got Courtney Love pregnant.

That was a pretty big one. Did that just come out of leftfield? That was complete invention.

And then there was the story that you were to blame for Owen Wilson's drug-fuelled suicide attempt. Oh yeah, that's probably bigger, that's the biggest one actually, yeah.

That can't have been very nice... No, but the truth will set you free, as they say. And it did. Owen is a very good friend of mine and yeah we're sort of talking, planning on doing something together, doing something else.

If there was any problem between you, presumably you wouldn't have just done Night At The Museum 2 together?
Well you would have thought so, yeah. The sequel allowed us to do a little bits of improvisation which was a lot of fun. I've seen the film and I'm really pleased with it. It's funnier than the first one, that's for sure.

What about some rumours that were less hurtful? Oh yeah, I once read somewhere that the headboard of my bed was the dashboard of a car.

You are into your cars so I guess it's plausible? Yeah, but that would be really dysfunctional, I think.

Is it true that your brother Brendan wrote off one of your Ferraris? I think it's three of them he's smashed up, yeah.

He's lovely like that, your brother. He is, he actually presents a TV motoring show now as well now bizarrely enough. I've never seen it actually.

And another of your brothers, Martin, was a singer in [cult Manchester indie band] the Mock Turtles. That's right, he wrote the songs too. He runs a recording studio now and he is a DJ for a local radio station playing music for increasingly old farts.

If you had to make one apology, what would it be and to whom? Probably to my parents, for some of my behaviour.

What annoys you about modern life? Right. I think postmodernism in general is shit. I want to kill people who make rubbish programmes and try to pass it off as irony. But what I really hate is the comedy of laughing at people who are shit at what they do. It's so fucking easy: it's like shooting fish in a barrel. It's that whole Idol thing. The comedy of humiliation I find really dehumanising and deeply unfunny, like laughing at people with learning difficulties.

What else? Let it out, man... People walking slowly in front of me annoy me. Mad bureaucracy. Like, exit signs. You don't see "exit" written on them any more, it's just a symbol, in case people can't read it and burn to death. For fuck's sake, learn to read the word "exit"! Oh, and nasty middle-aged female columnists in tabloid newspapers who take all their issues about themselves out on some poor unfortunate soul.

Career highlight and lowlight?  The highlight? Probably 1998 which was the year where everything seemed to go right. And 24 Hour Party People, that's the work that I'm most proud of, that's the thing that means the most to me. And the thing that I regret? Je ne regrette rein. I dunno. Lots of things, actually. But I don't think I've regretted any work I've done career-wise. I mean, even the bad decisions. If it doesn't destroy you it makes you stronger. I take a very Zen approach to all that stuff.

Steve Coogan plays The State Theatre and The Enmore Theatre, 24–27 Apr.

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