The question
What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Asked in 52 of the 131 consecutive instalments of The Guardian's The Q&A harvested on 2026-08-29.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Now, in this moment, in this city.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2018 source ↗
But the years 1895 to 1900 which are the staple of this story exceed in vividness, variety and exertion anything I have known—except of course the opening months of the Great War. When I look back upon them I cannot but return my sincere thanks to the high gods for the gift of existence. All the days were good and each day better than the other. Ups and downs, risks and journeys, but always the sense of motion, and the illusion of hope.
I am always happiest when I am making my art.
At work, my happiest moments are between “action” and “cut”. I am also very happy when justice is done, and when camping.
I was happiest in every aspect of my life in the 1990s, when I was married to Paddy [King, a management consultant] and we had the two children and my mum lived with us, and Countdown was the biggest show on Channel 4.
Losing consciousness or awareness.
Insensitivity. Indifference about what is right or wrong. Indifference about justice.
To survive from an impossible condition.
Matthew Bourne, Tom Ellis, Terry O'Neill, Arlene Phillips, Pauline McLynn, Brian Cox
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