My earliest memory of doing comedy was at my comprehensive school on Comic Relief. Me and my best mate decided we'd put on some of the Mr Bean sketches. I was Mr Bean and he played everyone else. I think we did the one where he meets the queen.
We just thought we'd do it in the playground and everyone would give us money for charity. But within seconds there was a baying mob surrounding us and basically screaming for our blood. It was the worst heckling I have ever experienced. I have never been as terrified doing comedy since.
My English teacher Miss Dougherty heard about it and kindly got us to do it on stage for the class (I guess it got her out of a lesson so win win). It not only went very well, I then improvised an entire stand-up routine with a puppet I'd brought along.
Genuinely whenever I do a show now I try to match how good that felt. How brilliant that teacher was! Without her I'd probably have never dared go back to it.
Ed Moore
Kings Head, Crouch End
I got into comedy properly with my mate Fergus Craig. We met at Manchester Met on the Acting course. After we left, I stayed around the North for a bit and did some proper serious acting but Fergus went down to London and started gigging in clubs. I followed him, we started a double act and off we went.
There was a brilliant sketch night at the Kings Head, Crouch End run by Brian Luff. We used to do it every wednesday and tried to do something new each time. Glorious days.
Etc Theatre, Camden
The first time I went solo, I did a show called Carnival of Monsters at the Etc Theatre in Camden. I was helped by my amazing wife Kat and my friends Steve Evans, Zoe Gardner and Dan Snelgrove.
I'd just written tons of characters that I'd never used for the double act and we put it together as a show with loads of music and weird theatrical elements.
I remember the first time I was fully in character as Len Parker and Anna Mann and feeling like I had literally become another person. It was like a religious experience.
Ed Moore
Al Murray
I've been lucky to have lots of comedy heroes give me a break over the years. Al Murray was one of the first, he got me being interviewees for the warm ups for his chat show.
I remember sitting in the audience watching his intro stand-up, completely bedazzled. He was like a force of nature, you had to get involved and join in - there was no way of escaping.
It was incredible character work and audience interaction that I always thought of when I did it as Anna Mann.
Mr Bean
I was eventually asked to do a Comic Relief sketch with Rowan Atkinson – in the final Mr Bean sketch ever.
It was set at a funeral and I was his straight man. They wouldn't let me be Mr Bean this time sadly.
I'm not sure I quite appreciated the significance of this for me at the time. When these moments come, they fly by and you don't really realise until after. He was incredible, though – the specificity and dedication to landing the joke exactly right was truly astonishing.
Colin
After all these years, I'm finally being myself on stage in my new show Colin. It never really occurred to me to do it before, but it's opened a whole world of stories.
I've come to realise the characters I was playing were always versions of the people I'd met, my family and me.
It's a real honour to get to do shows for an audience and try to make people laugh. I hope I can keep doing it till the end of my days!
Colin Hoult is performing at the Soho Theatre in London from 23-28 September before his tour begins on 3 October. For tickets, go to iamcolinhoult.com/live
