Joy! I'm starring in a panto, where my love for all that glitters started

As I gingerly begin to tread the boards again, I can’t help but think varied London theatre is about to be lost

- Rob Rinder

I ’M often the victim of a terrible misunderstanding: people who hear me talk think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, growing up in some swanky pile where we spoke French at teatime while Grandma played Bach on the harpsichord.

I did not. Like many people, I’m an invention. My life began in Southgate, and I got cracking on transforming myself very early. My vowels travelled from Amy Winehouse to Nancy Mitford by the time I was five. It wasn’t an aspiration to be a different class, you understand, just a desire to be anywhere else.

Of course, there were masses of amazingly, wonderful things in my suburban childhood, the most important of which was unconditional love (thanks Mum – please don’t write in). Looking back, I wouldn’t swap it for anything.