Miles Jupp: ‘I really must try and formulate some opinions on stuff…’

[prev]…respectful of the church and what being involved in the church means. I mean, as a programme it didn’t have its own theology or whatever, but it’s… you know, this is what these people think and this is how they operate.

And it respected the audience, as well, to assume they understood that was the case. A lot of programmes wouldn’t do that
Yes, it didn’t spoonfeed people. On the one hand you had Tom (Hollander) and Olivia (Colman) doing quite naturalistic stuff, and the comedy aspects were a bit broader, but at its heart it tried to be as real as possible.

‘I spent a lot of my 20s thinking, “I’ll do as much as I can, see what lands, and choose what to do when I’m 30.” And nothing really had landed by the time I was 30’

You have a lot of projects on the go at the moment, including script-writing, stand-up, acting in films, more panel shows. Do you enjoy the excitement of a portmanteau career or are you beginning to think you might like to choose one or two things to concentrate on?
I spent a lot of my 20s thinking, ‘I’ll do as much as I can, see what lands, and choose what to do when I’m 30.’ And nothing really had landed by the time I was 30 so I just carried on doing bits of stuff, and now a few things are happening at once, I suppose, and I’ve got to narrow it down slightly. I do really like writing and I do really like acting, so it will probably go in that direction. You go and do a talking heads show about something you know nothing about, then think: ‘Why did I do that, what was the point of it?’ but I very rarely feel that about acting or writing. At the moment, I am at the point where I will say ‘no’ to things, and that in itself is a difficult point to get to. For a long time you don’t have to make any choices because you do what’s there, and that’s a perfectly valid thing. You meet people who have had the most amazing careers and they say, ‘Well, I never turned anything down.’

Yes, Michael Caine is famous for doing that, isn’t he?
Ah, Michael Caine is smashing! And the thing about him is that he’s really technically brilliant, he’s said that he knows he’s not a great actor, but he knows he’s a great film actor, because he knows what’s required. If the director asks him to do something the same way twice, he’ll do it the same way twice; he understands the mechanics of film-making. I did a thing with him about seven years ago, and there were scenes he wasn’t in and he’d just go and sit at the back of the set, rather than going back to his trailer, and he explained, ‘Well, I’ll be needed again in five minutes and I’ll be here, I can just get on with it,’ and you think, ‘What a brilliant attitude!’

‘My dad used to be the minister of Westgate Church!’

There’s plenty on the horizon, including a new feature film in which you take a leading role (The Last Sparks of Sundown) and In and Out of the Kitchen (a radio comedy penned by and starring Miles) is transferring to TV. What’s the most exciting thing, coming up?
I’m actually about to have lunch with the director of In and Out of the Kitchen and watch an edit of some stuff! I’m excited to see how that turns out. The radio show had a certain feel to it and I’m interested to see if it’s possible to get that across on TV, or not. There’s a film I’ll be doing in September, I’m really looking forward to that, the working title is Puffins and will mean spending time in Northumbria. And I am looking forward to coming back to Peterborough, because my parents used to live near there – in fact, my dad used to be the minister of Westgate Church!

Miles Jupp Is The Chap You’re Thinking Of
Wednesday, 11 June, 7.30 pm
Key Theatre, Embankment Road, Peterborough
Booking: 01733 207239

www.vivacity-peterborough.com