Hello, I'm Kirstie Young.

Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the Radio Broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit bbc.co.uk-radio4.

My cast away this week is Johnny Vegas.

As a stand-up comic, he made his name as one of the most unpredictable and brilliant acts on the circuit.

His stage persona, a self-pitting drunk, belligerently heckling an audience,

who at times were unclear if they were watching a well-honed comedy act or witnessing a genuine breakdown.

These days, with his stand-up work behind him and after a good degree of success as an actor,

he described himself as an entertainer.

He's also consigned his heavy drinking to the past and lost a third of his body weight,

both part of a plan to ensure he reaches the ripe old age of 40 and can be a proper father to his young son.

He once said, I always consider myself creatively at my best when it odds with the world.

You once said that, I'm wondering if you still feel that way that it's always better to be the grit in the oyster.

I think it was certainly right for Johnny as a character.

I think it does, but I've run out of anger.

And I think people can see when something is genuine and when something's manufactured.

And although I always enjoyed mixing facts with a little bit of fiction,

there is a point where you've got life's actually turned around and been very good to me.

You have lost a lot of weight. How much weight have you lost?

I'm not entirely sure because I didn't weigh myself before I started,

but it would have been possibly forced on five.

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