Q: At the end of Hitchhiker’s you offer Martin Freeman’s character the chance to get rid of anything he doesn’t like in the second planet Earth. So, as the world builder extraordinaire, what would you get rid of?
I’m going to irritate most of the nation and say the English Channel, we should just hunk it down with the rest of Europe and get on with it. It hasn’t improved our manners being that far out at sea. And I might bring Ireland a little bit closer, with bridges coming out to the rest of the UK. And I thought we might take the temperature down in the Middle East a touch. And maybe a bit more rain in California. And replace the paintings that were destroyed in the Florence floods and anything that went missing in any of the wars. Maybe straighten up the Eiffel Tower and put Crystal Palace at the semi-finals of the European cup as well.

Q: Do you have your own interpretation of life the universe and everything?
Yes. Children. Kids are the meaning of life, I know it sounds lame. Them and the Crystal Palace football club. Mice are cool too.

Q: You work with mice in this film, and you’re providing the voice of a rat in Flushed Away. Is this a new theme in your work?
Obviously this is what’s happening. I play an ex-laboratory rat whose got brain damage from exposure to too many hallucinogenic. I’m called Whitie, an albino. And I’m a double-act with Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in the Ring trilogy. It’s a very cool animation. It’s about the world under London, everything that’s been flushed away. The children will love it.

Q: Talking of children, you’ve been working to save poverty stricken kids in Africa by starring in a TV film. How will that help?
It’s called The Girl in the Café, and it’s a 90-minute TV film written by Richard Curtis. It’s a romantic comedy starring me and Kelly McDonald from Trainspotting. It has been designed for a specific purpose, because it forms part of the Make Poverty History Campaign, which is being spearheaded by Sir Bob Geldof and Nelson Mandella among others. People cleverer than me see it as a unique opportunity to stop 30,000 children dying every day, completely unnecessary.

Q: Will you be part of Bob Geldof’s protest outside the G8 Summit then?
Certainly. The eight men who sit around the table at the G8 Summit could literally save hundreds of millions of lives, but whether they choose to do it or not remains to be seen. Bob Geldof wants a million people to surround the G8 Summit building in Scotland and I’ll be there. Flights are already booked. This film is set in an imaginary G8 Summit and it will be broadcast around the world within the same 24 hours. It infuriates me because if this was happening on a different continent we wouldn’t dream of leaving it for a few days, but because it’s happening in Africa, apparently it’s ok. I’ve read several books on it and it’s appalling.