What is your new Edinburgh show all about?
It’s about an hour.  Arf arf.  No really, there’s no overarching theme or plot. I haven’t done Edinburgh on my own since 1999 and I’m just looking forward to doing something quite laid-back given that it’ll be 3pm and everyone will be wide awake and sober. Well nearly everyone.  There will be certain topics that get discussed at length, I imagine – I’ve lost a LOT of weight this year (10 stone and counting) and some people have suggested I do the show about that, but here’s the thing – I’m just coming to the end of what, it turns out, was the easy part – GETTING the weight off. The really tricky part is KEEPING it off, and that’s just beginning.  So any sort of check-me-out-I-got-thin show would be premature this year (and possibly tempting fate).  However whenever anyone sees me for the first time in a while it’s all they can talk about, and since I’m sure there’ll be people coming this year who’ve seen me in previous years I don’t think I can completely avoid the topic.  It’ll be the dwarf elephant in the room, so to speak.

Are you a comedian or a musician first?
I don’t even make the distinction any more to be honest. I guess I’ve been playing musical instruments since before I started doing stand up comedy but then THAT was twenty years ago this summer so it’s all a bit academic.

You began your comedy career in Edinburgh?
I did; I came up to Edinburgh in 1988 to do my degree and ended up staying for eight years.  It probably still feels more like home than anywhere else, if I’m honest. I’m from Liverpool originally but it’s so long since I left and Liverpool’s changed so much (largely for the better, I should point out) that I hardly recognise the place now. Edinburgh I’m there five minutes and it’s like I never left.

Are you aware that you have a gay following?
Oddly I’m more directly AWARE of my lesbian following, if we still make such a distinction. I’m very gratified by the existence of ANY following. I wonder how much of it is down to the whole Doctor Who thing.

Are there any things you particularly like or dislike about Edinburgh?
The hills get to you after a while. But I’m sure they were doing me a power of good while I lived here. Put SO much weight on when I moved to London.

Do you have any suggested solutions to the world economic crisis?
The American satirist Bill Maher had a neat idea – he heard about how in China, the directors of a company that made tainted baby milk products that poisoned a bunch of kids were tried for corruption – and SHOT. He thought how about we pick TWO bent bankers – just two at random – and hang them in gibbets over the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.  Just to keep the others on their toes.

You’re a big fan of Twitter.
I am indeed.  It enables me to do stuff that just wasn’t possible even two or three years ago. For example; my podcast – I had the idea to do that on a Wed afternoon, mentioned my idea on Twitter, asked people to send recordings of funny songs for me to play and the first one was up for download on the Fri.  It took two days from concept to reality; I know that in proper radio that would have taken at LEAST six months, probably nine and maybe eighteen.

You sang about Tabloid Journalists on your Radio Face album back in 2002. What do you think to the current crisis in popular journalism?
On the one hand I don’t know why everyone’s so surprised – did ANYONE think there was ONE reporter using hacked voicemails? – but on the other hand I can’t believe I’m actually seeing this happen.  I thought News International had built up such a web of fear and influence around itself that nothing and no-one would ever touch it.  This isn’t the end for them by any means but when your whole power base is founded on your perceived invulnerability ANY chink in your armour is significant. Like Arnie says in Predator, “If it bleeds, ve can kill it…”

If you were given the role as the 12th Doctor, who would be your companion?
Listen, if I ever got cast as the Doctor I’d be so insane with happiness I wouldn’t CARE who my companion was.  Seriously. I’d be ok with anything. Hot chick, strapping bloke, granny, tin can on a bit of string, ANYTHING.