Cheggers plays bingo

I haven't got a bleeding clue what House! is about. They phoned me up about seven months ago and asked if I would come to Wales to play myself in a film about bingo. I turned up on the day, did my bit and buggered off. So I haven't seen the film yet but it does sound really funny, telling the story of Linda (Kelly Macdonald), who runs an old bingo hall threatened on all sides.

It was great to do a film again. As a kid I did loads - Polanski's Macbeth, Robin Hood Junior, and The Optimists with Peter Sellers. And loads of Childrens Film Foundation films which have been a total embarrassment because Sky TV recently showed them. Still it's nice looking back on stuff like Egghead's Robot with Roy Kinnear and Patricia Routledge, who played my mother. And I was in Open All Hours, Black Beauty and the last episode of Z Cars.

I enjoyed acting but found I was good at the audition and crap on the day. I remember a producer going, "Has he signed the contract yet?" My career started when I was nine with singing in working men's clubs. Then I went on a programme called Junior Showtime. Phil Collins's mum spotted me and asked me to come to London. I eventually got bored with acting and wrote a letter to the BBC suggesting a Michael Parkinson show for kids. They wrote back saying thank you for your idea, if you are ever around the BBC pop in. I was there within two hours. By fluke, the head of children's programmes said, "We're looking for an outside TV presenter, do you present?" My biggest advice to anybody in this business is lie. Don't go to stage school, bugger the agents, lie. So I said, "Oh yes, of course I have!"