I don't buy the Sunday papers any more. As I get older I just can't bear them. I think it's that they're full of the same dreadful stories, the same mistakes being made in different places all over the world by different people, the same ignorance. Either that or tawdry celebrity gossip. I just can't bring myself to care whether Posh has gained or lost a pound. I'd prefer to read a novel.

We have a fantastic local butcher in Brondesbury village. He has a great range of organic meat.

There are pictures on the walls of all the farms where the animals are reared and he has a direct line to the producers.

The beef is hung for something like five weeks . . .

it's unbelievably flavoursome and tender.

You know that the animals have been reared well and killed humanely . . . you can't ask for more.

The kids insist on a roast of meat on Sunday, they say that chicken should just be for weekdays. Jack has a big thing about crackling food so the current favourite is pork.

When you buy cheaper cuts of meat that have sweated away in plastic you don't get proper crackling.

When I'm not working as an actor I work as a chef for a chain of gastro-pubs and I can dip in and out of it depending on the acting work. It's been fantastic because I like working as a chef and it's helped me as an actor too.

In a strange way it's crystallised my love of theatre, by giving me the security to be able to choose quality work that challenges me.

I love classical theatre when it gels . . . I was on Broadway for six months in Frank McGuinness' version of The Doll's House, it was the longest-running Ibsen production ever. In The Crucible I play Reverend Hale, the witchhunter. Arthur Miller wrote the play in the 50s as a parable for the McCarthy era. He wrote it at the time he was romancing Marilyn Monroe.

We often have the inlaws, cousins or some friends over for lunch and there's usually eight or 10 of us sitting down for a meal.

In the summer, I'll make soup from the vegetables in the allotment and I'll also bake something for pudding. So we start the day off godly and end up really quite decadent.

The guests tend to melt away at around eight. If the weather's nice we'll sit out in the garden until it gets too cold. We never go out on Sunday evening, Monday's a working day for us all.

'The Crucible' by Arthur Miller opens at The Abbey on 30 May