For the Beyond Paradise actor, happy Sundays are all about the plot

What’s an average Sunday? I share an allotment with my friend, which is wonderful. We grow turnips, parsnips and tromboncinos, which are in the squash family and a bit phallic. It’s a really peaceful thing to do and it calms me.

Is it hard to get an allotment? You have to go on a waiting list. One of my big regrets is that I didn’t do it with my kids. Now they’re grown up, they look at me as if I’m a mad woman when I say I’m going down to the allotment. But it’s full of young couples with young children, digging.

Is there allotment envy? Yes. There’s always someone better than you. There’s a lady who does French squashes in the most extraordinary shapes, and someone else who has a magical bottomless pit of potatoes. My friend Caroline sorts out our logistics. She’s always getting gets me to build structures and hang nets to stop the birds eating all the cavolo nero.

Have you got a shed? We share a shed. There’s a lot of diplomacy. If a rake slips slightly on to someone else’s side, I become nervous and I push it back. Shed etiquette is very important.

Is it a happy place? Yes. As an actor, you have to use your brain and nerves. It’s wonderful on a Sunday morning to unlock the gate to the secret garden and see the wonder of what’s growing. (Why hasn’t anyone written a sitcom about an allotment? I might one day.) On the way home I like to steal into different churches.

Such as? On Christmas Day I went into the Russian Orthodox Church up the road. It was one of the most magical experiences of my life. I like travelling on the bus on a Sunday, because it’s slow and I can watch people. I might go to a choral evensong, or I might just have my mates round and we’ll get all horrendously drunk. It’s not PC here at all.