Shoot from the lip

Ralf Little is sporting a fine, purple, black eye. "This guy was eyeing up my girl down the pub, so I did what any man would do," he says. "Problem was, there were six, no eight of them..." He breaks off. "Actually, I got it playing football.

Little loves his football: he plays for Chertsey Town and the shiner came courtesy of the FA Cup extra preliminary round against Sevenoaks. Chertsey lost 4-2. "Did you see me on Sky? No, not playing Sevenoaks; earlier this year. A celebrity team played a team of Liverpool legends for charity. I was man of the match. It was my proudest ever moment."

It's a pity we're not here to talk about football, since the former Royle Family star could clearly talk about it all day. In fact, Little could probably talk about anything all day: an anecdote - fantastical or otherwise - comes attached to almost every sentence. Ostensibly, though, the subject in hand is On The Ceiling, Nigel Planer's debut play in which Little stars opposite veteran actor Ron Cook.

Based on historical fact, it's the story of two workmen who, quite literally, helped Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel. "The truth is, Michelangelo didn't know what he was doing," enthuses Little, proud to include Renaissance fresco techniques as one of his speciality subjects.

"He was a sculptor, not a painter, so he needed scaffolders and plasterers to help him out. He didn't want the job, either - it was only halfway through that he became inspired. We were going to visit it but then the Pope died, so we couldn't."

Little was 17 when he got the part of Anthony, Caroline Aherne's put-upon teenage brother in her brilliantly observed sitcom The Royle Family, in which, famously, nothing happened. After the first series, he went back to university to train as a doctor and considered acting as a career only when a second series was commissioned.

"I could have been perfectly happy as a doctor," he says. "But I had the chance to have a real shot at this thing and I would have spent the rest of my life wondering what would have happened if I hadn't. I don't think I could've faced that.

"The Royle Family was a beautiful piece of TV," he adds. "I have to remind myself that I was part of it. My principal memory was turning up and laughing. People would ask how my day went and I would say: 'and then Ricky [Tomlinson] opened a packet of crisps' and I'd collapse for at least five minutes. It's a shame The Office came along straight afterwards and eclipsed it - although Ricky [Gervais] was good enough to say that The Office could never have happened without The Royle Family."

Little has been deliberately picky since then. "You have to be brave about it - but you need to show people that you want to take risks," he says. His most notable appearance was playing New Order bassist Peter Hook in the film 24 Hour Party People, Michael Winterbottom's homage to Madchester.

"We were drunk most of the time," he admits. "The people the film was about were always pissed and Winterbottom decided we would be too. We improvised it. It was the most liberating, scary and genius way to work."