Quote

Audiences are so much more sophisticated than they've ever been. They expect a lot more. I don't think because it's an hour of your Thursday night rather than an hour and a half of your weekend that you should be gypped at all in quality.

We're not getting paid. We have these great musicians with us and it gives us a real charge. And the audience gives us a charge, because they keep it interesting all the time.

There's nothing like spending an evening with an audience every night.

When the audience is awful you can still have a great night and people will walk out thinking they had a great time even though there was loads of loudmouths and the sound was terrible.

The audience changes every night. You're the same person. You have to speak your mind and do the stuff that you think is funny and makes you laugh.

In my whole career, in fact, I can remember only two first nights when a show was at its peak on the first night. And I just wish we could devise a system where critics came not on a single evening but were given a choice of performances to attend.

I would be very wrong to charge anyone to watch me dance or sing.

Most of the big money people don't know what would interest an audience if you did it. They only know what interested the audience last time.

Anybody who's done standup will tell you that there's nothing like it. The show starts at 8:00, the curtain goes up and there's nobody else except you and the audience, and you just perform for them for two hours. Nobody yells, 'Cut!' There are no retakes. That is still the most exciting medium for me, and I love it.

Each audience is different.