Mum used to be happy watching Emmerdale... Now she’s been ina £200million robot...she’s changed
HIS ADORABLE MOTHER NINETTE, 60
I’d always wanted to go to Japan and India. So, we did the Holi festival, we found the weird underbelly of Tokyo, we recorded a K-pop song in south Korea... We went to places really off the beaten track, because all the people that worked on the show put together this amazing itinerary.
It’s like this perfect gap year. You do five things a day that ordinarily would be the one thing you’d do for that holiday, and it would be enough.
We had a lovely time doing it.
I loved it! It’s put a great strain on mum’s marriage, though. She used to be happy watching Emmerdale and now she’s been to South Korea, she’s been in a £200 million robot and she’s changed. And, to be honest, the rest of the family are beginning to notice it.
[laughing] I’ve got to put that record straight... Your dad is perfectly happy with me going!
No, no. He just goes cycling, and now he’s doing paddleboarding.
It would be awful, wouldn’t it, if dad was there as well... It would be two people who look identical, in a car, not talking.
so lovely that he did that for me.
You don’t really miss home – that’s the strange thing. You miss home on the days off, but the [filming] days were so jam-packed with ‘You’re going to meet a man that’s going to try and break six Guinness world records, and now you’re going to meet a man who’s got cosmic energy in his hands and he’s going to give you a massage, and then you’re going to a temple full of rats’.
Then, when you had time on your own, you go, ‘Oh god, I really wish my wife was here’.
I didn’t miss home. I was quite happy to be there! In fact, when I got home it was like [sighs], ‘I’m home now. I miss my people, I miss my friends’.
I think that’s the funny thing – I find mum very funny. We’re not trying to outdo each other. So, it’s quite nice to see two people, who actually like each other, hanging out.
Family holiday:
On TV, a lot of comedy is quite combative, ‘Who’s going to get the laugh?’ Whereas we’re not really fussed, are we?
I don’t think I’m funny at all. I just do silly things.
But you’re earnest and you’re completely yourself. There are no affectations.