I get a lot of letters from people saying, 'How do I get into radio, how do I get into telly?' and I wish there was an answer, because there's no ladder. There are no parameters. You've just got to go in wherever you can, make the tea and slowly make your way up the ladder. And that's the only way in. As far as television goes, it's all about experience. You'll get better at it as you do it. When I started in television in Ireland there was no autocue, nobody was terribly certain of what they were doing, so it was absolutely the most frightening thing you ever did in your life. So when people say, 'How do you stand seven hours of live television for Children in Need?', I say, 'I started on Irish television.' Now that was frightening, because when you stand in front of a camera, you haven't got an autocue to tell you what to do, and you're not an actor so you're not playing a role - you haven't learned anything off by heart - you look like a seagull because you're staring at the camera and all you're trying to do is remember what to say next. So you lose all humanity whatsoever, you just look totally frightened. And it's a frightening medium, television. But if you do it long enough, you get used to it.
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