As a kid who wasn't into sports at school I felt almost alienated at times whereas in the theatre community there was this amazing sense of camaraderie. Early on we would go to rehearsals with my dad and I was like the mascot for the backstage crew. That was a big part of my childhood so I dreamed of one day doing a play in London.

For 'Around the World in 80 Plates' we got to travel all over having what was like a cross between a culinary competition and races. And in each country we had a chef Ambassador. We went to London Barcelona Bologna Hong Kong Thailand Morocco... It was amazing.

If you're curious London's an amazing place.

As a child I wanted only two things - to be left alone to read my library books and to get away from my provincial hometown and go to London to be a writer. And I always knew that when I got there I wanted to make loads of money.

I never felt totally 100% patriotically English... I'd seen a lot of the world by an early age - sort of spent a lot of time traveling around Lebanon and I'd seen Babylon and Damascus and all sorts of places in the Middle East by the time I was ten. Then we'd return to Ruslip in West London... Done a fair bit of traveling really.

So Harry Potter came in and it is nice that I have kids of the right age. I took them to London and they walked around the set and met Harry Potter and that is thrilling.