Biography

Along with David Tennant, Matt Smith, Elisabeth Sladen, John Leeson, Tommy Knight and Lachele Carl, he is one of only seven actors to play the same character (Mr Smith) in both Doctor Who (2005) and The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007).

He is distantly related to William Armstrong, later Baron Armstrong of Cragside. Cragside is a mansion in Northumberland which was the first to be lit by electricity in the late 1860s.

Second cousin of the actress Imogen Stubbs (his grandfather was brother of her grandmother).

His father is Angus Armstrong (a GP) and his mother is Virginia McCausland. Has an older brother, Dominic and an older sister, Alice (b. 1967).

By an extraordinary coincidence, he bought the same first single and album as his Pointless (2009) co-presenter Richard Osman (the first album he bought was "Kings of the Wild Frontier" by Adam and the Ants and the first single he bought was "Swords of a Thousand Men" by Tenpole Tudor).

[on Jonathan Ross and the obscene phone calls he left with Russell Brand on Andrew Sachs's answerphone] What was so funny about it was how grimly inappropriate it was. It was the nearest thing to slapstick I've ever heard on the radio. It's the equivalent of two people trying to carry a piano up the stairs and it just falling down to the bottom each time. It was hilarious because it was wrong - you don't say that to a national treasure. Trouble is, some people's senses of humour are able to deal with that and other people, their gorge rises and they go, "That's just appalling." Now look what we've done. We've got rid of the best broadcaster of our age. But it'll be fine - he'll be back.

I would say back in the 1990s when everybody was focusing on Britpop, I think the most exciting thing to happen in that decade was Beverley Knight. Absolutely extraordinary.

[on Pointless Celebrities (2010)] David Bowie would be my dream contestant. I'm a huge fan but they couldn't get him for the Olympic opening ceremony so I think it would be hard. He may have a different set of priorities though - I would applaud that.

People never look better than in period costume, especially men.

[on Die Another Day (2002)] That's a couple of hours I'll never get back.