Never meet your heroes. That’s what they say. A mantra I myself have adhered to.

In all honesty I can’t say it’s been much of a sacrifice. It’s not as if Mohammed Ali or Hattie Jaques have come knocking on my door (now there’s a sentence you’re not likely to read anywhere else this week).

I do like the idea of them maybe turning up together at the Roberts homestead and me hiding under the table in the back room shouting “Don’t let them in.”

That highly unlikely scenario is, of course, now substantially more highly unlikely given that they’re both dead.

In truth, it’s not been difficult to avoid personal contact with my heroes.

The one occasion I actually did turn down the opportunity to meet a hero was when I’d programmed the comedian Frankie Howerd to appear at the Salisbury Festival back in 1988.

When it came to meeting him, I grandly waived aside the invitation on the basis that I didn’t want my impression of his real offstage personality to interfere with my enjoyment of his onstage persona.

And I’ve regretted it ever since. What an idiot.

So when Stuart Tulloch at Firstsite asked if I would like to interview Chris Morris after the screening of his latest film The Day Shall Come, I saw this as a chance to at last lay to rest the 30 years of hurt that my mistake had invoked.

I’ve been a huge fan of Chris Morris since he first crossed my radar with his radio show On The Hour back in the 90s.

The satirical show not only completely skewered the nonsense and paper thin credibility of our politicians and celebrities, but dismantled the whole business of news and current affairs in a way that had never been done before.

It later transferred to the telly even more affectively as The Day Today, complete with its eye boggling and hilarious graphics. Above all, the show was funny.

In comedy it’s really simple in the end. There’s only one rule. Be funny. You can be as clever as you like. You can be insightful, educated, pithy, knowing...all these things. But in comedy, if it ain’t funny, it’s not gonna work.

Chris Morris has been all these things and he has remained funny throughout all the glorious iterations of his talent. On the radio, on the telly, in feature film, podcast, writing, the lot.

In this latest film he turns the cross hairs of his sights onto the FBI and their role in fostering terrorist threats from hopeless and vulnerable people, so they can then arrest them and thus save the nation. Based entirely on fact, it’s a chilling and compelling story...and very funny.

Although nervous as a kitten, I’m pleased to report I survived our encounter. I’d set the bar pretty low. I just wanted to avoid coming across as a complete prat.

We bonded when it turned out we both been at the same gig by The Jam in 1981. Great gig. Great film. Great guy.

I’ll make it up with Frankie Howerd in the afterlife.