Why would Quentin get involved with me, having worked with legends like Roald Dahl? I was asked by my publisher who I'd like and I said his name, thinking: he'll never do it. I always wanted it to have illustrations, but getting Quentin Blake was a pipe dream. It probably went through at least 20 drafts. I wrote on the plane – all those trips to Los Angeles and back with very little distraction. Me and Matt were making the American series of Little Britain at the time, so we were travelling a lot. Of course, the work really comes when you start writing it.
When an idea is floating around in your head, you think it's perfect and finished. Except the football – I was never any good at that. When you're writing for children, you have to remember what it was like to be a child and you do tend to put a lot of yourself into your lead character.
I just wanted to tell the story of this one boy, Dennis, and the tension between him liking manly things like playing football and something quite different like reading Vogue. I didn't want to start using terms like transvestite in a book for eight- to 12-year-olds. The Boy in the Dress isn't autobiographical, but it does feel very personal.
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