In the past I used to counter any such notions by asking myself: 'Would you really want President Hattersley?' I now find that possibility rather cheers me up. With his chubby Dickensian features and his knowledge of T.H. Green and other harmless leftish political classics Hattersley might not be such a bad thing after all.

Quality in a classical Greek sense is how to live with grace and intelligence with bravery and mercy.

Classical plays require more imagination and more general training to be able to do. That's why I like playing Shakespeare better than anything else.

The great thing about university is that they incline you to get up and do it from the Classics to modern plays to the humor that Monty Pythons made popular.

Oh stuff the critics. I don't care. Too many people are snooty about classical. Look I wasn't brought up in a home where we listened to classical music. It was a singing teacher that thought it would be best for my voice. Then I moved into crossover. And if that makes the music accessible to more people then great.

If history philosophy and so on vanish from academic life what they leave in their wake may be a technical training facility or corporate research institute. But it will not be a university in the classical sense of the term and it would be deceptive to call it one.

I would like to be as fit as I've always been. I've been blessed with good health I've been blessed with stamina. Particularly for those great classical roles you need an Olympian stamina. I fortunately have that.

All too often government's response to social breakdown has been a classic case of 'patching' - a case of handing money out containing problems and limiting the damage but in doing so supporting - even reinforcing - dysfunctional behaviour.

I had a really good childhood up until I was nine then a classic case of divorce really affected me.

There's a wealth of literature out there which hopefully will be you know exploded in the future and I personally find it very rewarding to be involved with classic storytelling and sort of legendary characters.