Education: Passed/Failed Charlie Higson

Charlie Higson, 40, is a comedy writer, actor and producer. He co-produced `The Fast Show' and presents the C4 Tuesday programme, `Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'. His fourth novel, `Getting Rid of Mr Kitchen', is just out and his first novel, `King of the Ants', has been re-released.

Fast mover: My father was an accountant working for different companies and at first we moved around quite a lot. I enjoyed all my schools. When we moved to Sussex, I went to the junior school of Fonthill, a prep school, and then to Fonthill itself. My two elder brothers were at the school - one was head boy - and we Higsons were "major", "minor" and "min" (minimus). I was in a school play, Sheridan's The Critics. I played a woman and had only one line - "But see here your stern father comes". I enjoyed the dressing up.

You don't have to be mad to teach here but it helps: I passed the 11-plus to Sevenoaks School, which I assumed was a public school, but my brother said recently it was something bridging the gap between the state and private systems. I got eight O-levels. I always preferred arts subjects, but also got maths and advanced maths. I did ancient Greek for a laugh because the teacher was insane, but I was nowhere near getting it. I did classical civilisation at A-level, when it was a new subject, and got a B, and a B in English and an A in art.

Don't give up the degree job! Bob White was a very good teacher and I spent a lot of my time hanging round his art department, which had many facilities, including a TV studio. Throughout my schooling I assumed I would go to art college, and I always thought I wanted to be an artist, but my father, being a practical-minded accountant, said: "You will need to have a proper job, and a degree will help." I started on an Oxbridge course, but there, modern English literature came to an end with D H Lawrence. I applied to do English and American studies at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.

Doesn't suit him, sir: I found it easy to adapt to university but most of my friends in my first year, including Paul Whitehouse, ended up by not making it into the second year. I got by, but Paul was doing development studies, which was a very Seventies and right-on thing to do, studying economics and politics in developing countries. To this day he doesn't know what the course was really about.

Wild about Harry Enfield: The first time I met Paul, there was a certain amount of mutual mistrust. He's from a laddish working-class background, and I was more public school. But we drifted together and formed a punk band. Harry Enfield, who went to York University, had a friend he used to come to visit, and so did Vic Reeves.

Hey, hey we're the Higsons! I didn't do drama; I was more interested in our punk band, which unfortunately we called The Right-hand Lovers. We started another group called The Higsons, which played in the university and around Norwich. We had an unexpected indie hit with our first single, "I Don't Want to Live with Monkeys", on the Romans in Britain label. I did this for six years. We managed to travel around the world and get free beer, but as you get older it becomes quite undignified, so me and the bass player went into decorating instead.