INTERVIEW
The comedian and actor on celebrating Christmas in the Cotswolds and channelling his inner elf
1 Film star, primetime TV actor and now bestselling children’s author. How did that happen?
I was always making up stories for my kids. When my eldest son, Jackson, was eight (he’s now 17), he told me he wasn’t sure he believed in Father Christmas. This spurred me to write the story of how Father Christmas became Father Christmas: the most robust scientific argument I could make for his existence. It wasn’t intended for publication, until Igot chatting to Luigi Bonomi, now my literary agent, at a book festival. I’d already written a couple of non-fiction popular science books, having got halfway through aPhD at Cambridge before I swapped physics for comedy in the 1990s. The Night I Met Father Christmas, my first novel for children, was published in 2018.
2 Does making up stories come easily?
Writing sketches with Alexander Armstrong [as part of comedy duo Armstrong and Miller] was like writing fiction: every sketch was a story with a beginning and an end. Writing children’s books, it helps that I still feel so connected to my eight-year-old self – probably because I’ve never had a proper job or anything approaching responsibility. I’ve also had the advantage of trying out material on my kids – first Jackson, then Harrison (11) and now Lana (eight).
3 Are kids constructive critics?
They’ve taught me that children read differently from adults. They get more out of every word but it costs them a lot in time and effort, so the story has to be hugely rewarding. I write for six-to nine-yearolds, who really care about the sensory details: what colour things are and how they smell and feel. I act out every part in my head, as if I’m on stage, because it has to feel real. The worst thing you can do is underestimate how smart and clever children are.
4 Do you write at the kitchen table?
I have a shed in the garden at our Cotswolds home. We moved here from North London nine years ago after my wife, Jess, and I fell in love with an Arts and Crafts house. The shed was built by the architect who owned the house before us: it’s a miniature cottage with a vaulted ceiling and tiny kitchen and bathroom. Our two-year-old Goldendoodle Stevie always needs a good wash after a walk (she’s named after Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac because of her shaggy blonde hair). The bathroom in the shed is the perfect place to bathe her.
5 Any good doodle walks on your doorstep?
During lockdown, the farmer next door invited us to walk around his fields. We discovered a little valley behind our house, which has a beautiful view across the curving Cotswold Hills. The landscape seems to fold in on itself, so fields and buildings appear at strange angles. It’s like Postman Pat meets Inception [the Christopher Nolan film famo
