Harry Hill will never bring back TV Burp – but he wants someone else to revive it

We’ve got a telly in every room except my office. When I stopped doing [Harry Hill’s] TV Burp, I was so sick of watching TV that I got rid of the one in there. At 8pm each evening, my wife [artist Magda Archer] will watch her stuff on the kitchen TV – A Place in the Sun, almost exclusively – while I go into the TV room and watch my boy’s stuff. I like crime dramas like This City Is Ours and MobLand. They’re all the same story, really, but it’s one I enjoy.

Would you ever bring back TV Burp?

I don’t have any plans. These things are best left undone. We did all the jokes. Trying to re-create that, I’d be on a hiding to nothing, but I’d love someone else to do it. There’s a space for that sort of show and I’m surprised no one’s filled it.

What’s Knitted Character up to now?

He’s in my live show. He comes on at the end as part of the badger parade, riding on the back of a heron. Blink and you’ll miss him because he’s only tiny, but he’s still working. Knitted Character is older and wiser now. He doesn’t necessarily want the stress of a weekly show, either.

What comedy inspired you as a kid?

Brucey, Eric and Ernie and The Two Ronnies were big in our house, but what really got me was Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The problem was, my dad decided what was on, and at 9pm, he wanted to watch the news on BBC One. I wanted to watch Not the Nine o’Clock News on BBC Two. We’d sneak it on, turn the sound down and hope he wouldn’t realise what the time was.

You now voice Bristles the talking paintbrush in CBBC series Go Get Arty. The show is a bit like Neil Buchanan’s Art Attack, isn’t it?

My kids watched that, but there’s been a bit of a gap ever since. Go Get Arty is the first “how to” art show for a while. It does what the BBC is supposed to do, which is educate and entertain, but not in a heavy-handed way. The BBC should never have hived off children’s TV from the main channel. They shot themselves in the foot there, because that’s where you build your brand loyalty. When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to watch ITV. It was sort of seen as common – full of shouty people doing dangerous stuff that looked absolutely fantastic.

Did you watch art shows as a kid?

I liked Take Hart, with Tony Hart and Morph. Vision On was fantastic, too. It was supposed to be for hearing-impaired children, but I loved their silent bits where the guy would be out in a field, painting white lines with a line-marking machine, then you’d get an aerial view of what he’d drawn.

Did you make the things you saw?

I made an Action Man house out of a cardboard box. There wasn’t much else to do back then, especially in rural Kent during winter. We weren’t even allowed to use the phone. If you wanted to find out if Adam Starkey was up for playing, you’d walk a mile up the road and knock on his door. If there was no answer, you’d go to the next one on your list: Patrick Crawley. Or sometimes you’d sit on Adam Starkey’s doorstep and wait for him to come home.

You’re an accomplished artist today…

It’s a hobby. I do it for fun, not financial gain. I’m not self-conscious about drawing. I don’t worry about what it ends up looking like, I just embrace the process. I’ve always been into the visual side of my work, both on TV and in my live shows, even down to the tour brochure. I make sure it’s all in keeping with the Harry Hill aesthetic.

Who are your favourite artists?

Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Philip Guston. I have a Tate membership and go to anything that’s on. Magda is a painter and one of my daughters is, too, so occasionally we get invited to private views. I revere artists. It’s the purest calling. What better way to earn a living?

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