You've also got a new character this season...
Yes, absolutely. I saw Matt Berry in Garth Marenghi and I fell head over heels in love with him. He's wonderful, I could sit down now and write ten scenes for Matt because his of voice. He speaks with such authority, and when you make him say inane things, the results are great... like that volcanoes and dinosaurs ad, now there's an ad that makes me feel happy whenever I see it!

Do you think Season One was unfairly criticised?
" think one problem was we put it online before it was on the TV, so the first people to talk about it were the "it's shit brigade", the comic-shop-owner- in-The-Simpsons types who are absolutely desperate to knock something first. That sort of chatter hurt us a little bit because it guided the idea that the show was somehow a failure but once people acclimatised to it we had a much better time.

The other problem was the pre-show hype which centred around it being "The new show from Graham Linehan, Ash Atalla and Chris Morris", or "From the makers of The Office, Brass Eye and Father Ted", so people thought it would be this incredible Frankenstein's mix of all three shows, which it wasn't. The other guys were helping me out but it was really my first solo sitcom, and in fact it's just an old-fashioned sitcom in the Father Ted vein. So I think it took a while for people to realise that whilst it may not be a startling advance in sitcom technology, it was funny.

Was it a deliberate decision to make the show as gentle as it is?
Yes. I don't want to make divisive comedy - stuff that people can't watch together. I think if something is fashionable you should do the opposite; if everybody is doing dark I want to do light! Loads of comedies are only interested in pushing the envelope but once you've pushed it so far, all you are left with is a big floppy envelope. I don't want to push any envelopes, I want to be as funny as I possibly can be in the way Steve Martin concerts used to be funny and early Woody Allen films were funny - going for the joke and nothing else, really trying to make people a bit giddy with laughter.

I don't really want to force people to change their opinions on big issues, although this season I've tried to copy something that Fawlty Towers and Seinfeld does, which is to take taboo subjects and treat them in a very very light way which couldn't possibly offend people, but it will make them laugh.