6. What do your children think of your job?

They tell their friends my job is “telling jokes and building little robots.” I don't know if I'm adequately preparing them for the job market.

7. What’s the worst thing about being a comedian?

Neurosis and self-doubt

8. I think you are very good at what you do (that’s why I’m asking these questions). What do you think of you?

Like many comedians I am constantly struggling with the right balance between content and comedy. In most comedy shows the content consists of opinion and worldview, in mine the content is mainly science. My current show can both pass as a stand-up show and a basic introduction to special relativity for the layman. I hope to be able to repeat this in the future for other scientific topics.

9. How much do you earn and how much would you like to earn?

There is no greater luxury than living beneath your means. I have the luck to earn enough, and I'm not a big spender. Let's hope neither of these change.

10. How important is luck in terms of career success – have you had lucky breaks?

Hard to tell how important it is. I had the luck to be the first of my generation of Belgian comedians to start working for television, but now most of them have TV careers too, so I guess I would have gotten there after all.

But yes, if your cousin wins a jury prize at the Cannes film festival and then asks you to write and play a TV comedy show together, I guess you can call that a lucky break.

11. Alan Davies has said that comedians fall into two categories - golfers and self-harmers. The former just get on with life, the latter are tortured artists. Which are you – or do you think you fit into a third category?

I am rather untortured, and I consider comedy more entertainment then art. I guess this makes me a golfer by apagogical argument.

12. Who is your favourite person ever and why – not including family or friends or other comedians?

Richard Feynman. A Nobel prize winning physicist, talented and funny writer and public speaker, brilliant mind, non-conformist, master explainer of complex topics, playful and joyful... He is so many things I try or would like to be. If you don't know him the interviews with him you find on youtube are a great introduction.
I often use this Feynman quote: "Physics is like sex. Yes, it may lead to practical results, but that's not the reason why we do it."

The Wonderful World of Lieven Scheire is at Soho Theatre from May 12 - 14 at 9.15pm. Tickets and info here.