My parents were always pretty free with me. They were of the school of thought that if you really cramp down on someone and tell them not to do all these things, it's gonna become like forbidden fruit.

When you hear someone say something homophobic, it really ages them. It sounds old-fashioned.

It’s hard to imagine what changed after that first bite of forbidden fruit, but it must have been a little like the power going out in the dead of winter. The warm light of God’s perfect presence vanished and chill dread must have swollen inside them.

He had, they said, tasted in succession all the apples of the tree of knowledge, and, whether from hunger or disgust, had ended by tasting the forbidden fruit.

He couldn’t see why people made such a fuss about people eating their silly old fruit anyway, but life would be a lot less fun if they didn’t. And there was never an apple, in Adam’s opinion, that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it.

I was at college studying psychology, philosophy, textiles and drama. But because I wasn't one of those all-singing, all-dancing stage-school kids, I just assumed I'd never become an actor.