Interview from Loaded magazine.

October 1998.

How fashionable were you as a kid then?
Not too much, really. The first time I got excited about clothes was probably when I was seven and we had this American kid come to stay over at our house. His family were really rich and were friends of my family or something. Anyway, he gave us some of his clothes when he left, and because they were American me and my brother were fighting over them. They were just a pair of stripy flares, actually. They had about eight or nine different coloured stripes, all on the one trouser. I went to my mate's seventh birthday party in them once in 1973 -I remember 10CC were in the charts. And I remember my mate's dad saying "Have you come in your pyjamas?" I was dead pissed off. I said to him, "They're American, you can't get 'em here." I was too ahead of my time, that was the problem. They did look like pyjamas, though.

What about at school?
When I started school in 1977 everyone had massive fat knots on their ties. And I mean everyone. There was just this really small thin bit poking out of the knot. There was no tie, just a knot. They were huge. And that was the only fashion at school. -nes just got bigger and bigger throughout my time there, until they sort of imploded like a black hole thing, and then ties almost disappeared. By the time I left, everyone was tucking the fat end inside and putting the thin bit on the outside. Funny how it goes like that.

Were you ever in a school play?
I played a flying monkey in The Wizard Of Ozwhen I was about seven. The school told me I had to come in the next day with a brown pair of tights, a brown jumper and a brown Balaclava. We also had to sew some silk on the arm of the jumper to the waist so it looked like wings. My dad thought he'd be really innovative stitching these two giant plastic ears onto the side of the Balaclava to make me look more like a monkey. He thought that would be really good and be way ahead of everyone else. So, of course, I put this Balaclava on with the ears and everyone just laughed.

Did you look like a monkey?
I just looked like a seven-year-old boy with grown man's ears. I looked liked one of those medical freaks. Me mum couldn't find a plain brown jumper either, so mine had these orange zigzags down the front. That didn't looked like a monkey either. Where did you hang out in this outfit?
Well, I was too young to go anywhere so all could do was stand about on street corners. I had nowhere to go and I had eyeliner on. Can you imagine that? It's that horrible age when you're 15 when all you can do is go round to your mate's house. That's all there is to do, ha ha, you know what I mean?

Did you never fancy being a punk?
Well, I went halves with me mate on buying Never Mind The Bollocks by the Sex Pistols.

How do you go halves on an album?
Neither of us could afford it on our own, so we had a week-on-week-off sort of routine going. But I couldn't show the cover to my mum 'cos of the swearing so I had to smuggle it out in a Val Doonican album cover. Me mum thought I was into Val Doonican at about 11.

What's the worst haircut you've had?
I had big hair as a kid -that's how it naturally goes when it gets longer. It was huge. There's pictures of me dressed as an altar boy but with Leo Sayer hair. Imagine that, eh? I was at the wedding for the lead singer of a band called the Red Guitars, who were big in the '80s. Supported the Smiths once.

What was the last thing you looked ridiculous in which you were unaware of?
I bought some of that all-in-one underwear once. You know those things that are half vests and half pants, but they've got buttons going up the chest? They were striped as well. Looked like an old-fashioned bathing suit. I was working with John Thomson once and I had to change out of an outfit and I had these things on. As soon as he sees them he starts laughing his head off. "It's not because what you're wearing is so ridiculous," he says. "It's the fact that you took your clothes off so nonchalantly thinking there was nothing wrong with your underwear. That's what's funny."

Were you ever a mod or a rocker?
Neither. I was possibly the worst thing you could be. I was very heavily into the Human League and used to crimp my hair to straighten it out a bit. Then I'd grease it back on one side and crimp it so it went over one eye. I looked like an idiot. I'd put eyeliner on an' all, and wore stretch denim jeans with red piping down the side and a double-breasted shirt with those buttons that go up the side like Gary Numan. Oh God, I had winkle-pickers on as well.

Where do your characters get their gear from?
Paul Calf: My brother's the lead singer of this band called the Mock Turtles. And Paul Calf's jacket, the powdery blue one, well that used to be my brother's jacket. I remember he bought it from a shop called Clobber in the Arndale Centre in Manchester. It was part of a suit an' all. I found it in the wardrobe at me mum's house in a wardrobe a few years ago. He moved out years ago but me mum just keeps everything that should've been thrown out just in case he needs it. Like, if he comes home penniless one day at least he'll have a Roxy jacket to put on. I'm quite attached to it now.

Tony Ferrino: With him I wanted to do one of those kind of lifestyle people. You know on the back page of a porno mag in the mid '705 they'd have an advert for Rothmans? It'd be like some Rothmans placed on the dashboard of an E-type Jag, and driving gloves casually draped next to them. That whole sort of bachelor lifestyle kind of thing I thought was really good. I imagined this perfect mythical bachelor lifestyle where you had all the right accoutrements. There must be people out there who constantly try and buy the right clothes, the right accessories. Well that's him

Alan Partridge: All these sweaters that Alan started wearing were always very expensive. I used to go to Lillywhite's at first to buy them. It's becoming increasingly difficult, though, to get him clothes because some jumpers that look like they might be disgusting turn out to be alright when you put them on. Then, fortunately, I found this shop in Ireland recently. This place had jumpers that were still horrible. It was brilliant. They'd have a pattern on the collar like a small triangle, then an oblong and then a brown circle. It was some sort of attempt at an abstract sweater that a middle-aged man might find snazzy. Maybe a bit of a risk. The strange thing is that a lot of the gear Alan wears now kind of looks cool on 19-year-old boys. It's casual. But it still looks terrible on middle-aged men. You know when you see politicians being interviewed on the telly at their home, and some PR guru has obviously advised them to wear a sweater and some loafers? They'd always look really uncomfortable, with like a hirt collar poking out of a turtleneck jumper. It never fails to amaze me when you see rich, successful businessmen who spend a lot of money on clothes and they just look wrong. Poor old Alan. He's sort of casual dad, I suppose. A sporty uncle who earns a little bit too much money for his own good.

Have you got any new characters?
I've always wanted to do a one-off character of an international grandmaster chess player who travels the world solving crimes. He's called Cheddar Blaize. He's very swish, like Jason King. Austin Powers sort of covered this sort of character a bit, but I wanted it much more serious than that so the joke was hardly obvious. Like when Cheddar knocked someone out with a karate chop to the back of the neck he'd just brush his hands and say "Checkmate". He'd have a look a bit like The Persuaders. Now I really, really loved The Persuaders. And although the script was terrible it always had great potential because the relationship between Tony Curtis and Roger Moore was so believable. I liked the fact that after Moore had punched someone he'd immediately take a comb out, sort his haircut and wander off.