‘Mark E Smith said the Fall would only come on if I didn’t play piano’: Jools Holland on making Later …

‘I see the greats close up’ … Kylie Minogue on Later … With Jools Holland in 2007. Photograph: Andre Csillag/Rex Features

Jools Holland, presenter

We started with nothing. No sets, no audience, no budget. “Why don’t we put the camera in the middle,” said our director Janet Fraser-Crook, “then you can just walk around all the artists?” I’m comfortable moving about and making things up as I go. I’m a professional arser-about. At one point they were going to call it Jools Holland’s Circus but we thought artists might feel like performing seals or clowns.