Black Books adheres to a more old fashioned, traditional sitcom format, which I think works, because in its own way, it's quite theatrical.
But when you do a film, you have to be prepared to learn a whole different menu.
I also think it helps that Black Books has a fusty and careworn feel - it could be the 1950's, it could be the 1930s.
I don't really think of myself as an actor.
I don't want to do the same thing over and over again.
I have a very low level of recognition, which is fine by me.
I have no qualifications to do anything else and there weren't any formal application forms you had to fill in for stand-up, so I thought I'd give that a twist.
I just love bookshops, especially the Waterstones on Piccadilly, which not only happens to be the biggest bookshop in Europe or something, but has a bar!
I myself have been to book auctions.
I never thought I want to do anything, really, except not go to work properly and turn up at the same place every day and eat sandwiches in the same canteen, if I can possibly help it, as I don't think I'd be very good at it.
I never thought, I want to do films.
I think a lot of the time you just parody yourself.
I think that women just have a primeval instinct to make soup, which they will try to foist on anybody who looks like a likely candidate.
I thought The Office was good, though I didn't think of it as a sitcom, just as a very good programme.
I'd never written a sitcom before.
I'm actually about as famous as a fourth division footballer from the 70s.
If I hadn't done this I might have ended up digging the roads.
In the same way, there is some creature gnawing away inside of me, urging me to do things in different ways.
It's true that I have spoken about doing a book before, but then everyone you speak to is planning to write a book.
One thing that's coming up a lot is: are you as grumpy as you appear from this Black Books thing.
People walk past me in the street and look at me, but because they think I work in their office and they can't remember my name.
Showing off seemed to me to be a highly valuable and necessary activity when I was 20.
The careers teacher told me I had a clear choice: if I didn't end up going to university I'd end up robbing post offices.
The characters can't be wittier than people are in real life. They have to be character witty.
The trend now is to get away from stage bound sitcoms.
The truth is that I'm constitutionally incapable of doing an ordinary job.
We are both drawn to surreal situations so the writing was a joy.
Yeah, I think Michael has had to deal with that label of being Michael Caine for a long time.
You achieve the surreal jokes through the realism by making it elastic.
You exaggerate your own reactions.
You try various things when you're growing up. I was an attache in the Foreign Service for a while and then I drove a bulldozer, but neither of those panned out for me so it had to be stand-up.
Dylan is married to Elaine. They have 2 kids.
Dylan met his wife, Elaine, at The Gilded Balloon in Edinburgh
Some of his favourite authors are Don DeLillo, SJ Perelmam and JB Morton.
You can share a link to this page with your friend!