Hal Cruttenden - Stand Up, Writer, Actor

I’ve never lost that September feeling of going back to school with strong convictions about how this year I will become a brilliant student and live up to my potential. I don’t think I actually ever had great academic potential but I’m middle class so was brought up with parents telling me that I did.

I’ve realised how much time I spend name-dropping and making out my life is a whirlwind of fun gigs and TV recordings when it’s actually filled with lots of worry, panic and self-doubt. Those familiar with my act will know the latter qualities make up a large proportion of my material.

The papers are trying to work out who’s to blame for his death. Personally I blame Gazza. If you’re cold and wet, surrounded by armed police, with no hope of escape, and then in the distance you hear a lone voice singing, ‘Fog on the Tyne is all mine all mine’, I know I’d pull the trigger.

I love the way the French do it. They either seem to get to the final of the World Cup or completely implode in the group stages and start losing to crap teams. They fail with such panache. One player calls the manager a ’son of a whore’ and gets sent home. The other players [...]

Strong whiff of nostalgia last week. ‘Mrs Dalloway‘, a film in which I played young Hugh Whitbread was on BBC4.  It’s not riveting cinema (my mum actually fell asleep when she went to see it – yes her own son was in the movie and she couldn’t keep her eyes open) but, if you’re into [...]