FOR James Corden growing up in High Wycombe was “blissfully ordinary” and as he releases his autobiography he talks to Rebecca Cain about what it meant to him.

The actor had his big break in Alan Bennet's play History Boys and is currently back working with director Nicholas Hytner in One Man, Two Guvnors.

After a sell-out run at the National Theatre the cast is touring to five places in the UK, including Aylesbury Waterside Theatre until Saturday, before taking it to the West End.

And yesterday Corden, who grew up in Hazlemere, released his autobiography, May I have your attention please.

He said about High Wycombe: “I have such affection for it as a place. When I go back- you know what it is like when you go home.

“It feels like every inch of it holds a memory for me for me from when I worked in Bella Pasta which is now some weird sort of kebab type place to the Swan theatre- to doing productions there all the time- to snogging girls in that little pedestrianised walk way by McDonalds.

“I love it all. I mean it's kinda blissfully ordinary. Sometimes it could be painfully ordinary and it has a chair museum so what more could you want from a town. And I like this Eden place.”

His parents still live in Hazlemere which is where he grew up. The Gavin and Stacey writer, who is from a Salvation Army family, recalled the moment he realised he wanted to be an actor when he was at his sister's Christening.

He said: “We were all up on the platform and I couldn't see so the army officer, the vicar, got a chair and said come and stand on here. And I remember it as clear as yesterday and immediately it wasn't a platform it became a stage and I started messing around.

“I sort of turned around and looked through my legs and people laughed and people were giggling on the stage and I thought, 'Oh man.'

“And then when I sat down when it was done, when it was finished, dad went to get me down and I jumped off like a rock star and I landed and they clapped and I remember thinking, 'Oh my God this is great' and being taken down back into the congregation and sat between my mum and dad and staring at someone's back and I remember thinking this is rubbish compared to that.”

Hence the name of his autobiography, yet he said he hopes the attention seeking side has lessened since he has got older.

He went to Jackie Palmer's Stage School and continually auditioned until at the age of 17 when he got his first job in a musical in the West End.

Corden said he always wanted to be an actor but he realised after being in The History Boys he needed to make his own opportunities which is when Ruth Jones and himself wrote the hit sitcom Gavin and Stacey together, which made him a household name.

He said he jumped at the chance to work with Hytner again and said he feels so lucky to be able to be in a play like One Man, Two Guvnors. It is a Richard Bean play based on The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni.

He said: “I certainly never thought I would be in a play that would capture people's imaginations as much as The History Boys. And yet this sold out quicker. It looks like it is going to have all the legs that that play did. I can't believe my luck really.”

But his tight work schedule, whilst juggling being a new dad, means he cannot turn the lights on in High Wycombe this year.

He said: “One of the worst things that I has happened to me recently. I am so upset. I got asked to turn on the lights at Christmas in Wycombe town centre which for me was like, 'Oh my God. Well that's it- I have done it. I can just retire now.'

“I can remember being a kid and saying, 'Who is turning on the lights- Nick Berry- Oh my God.' And going down and watching but I can't do it as I have got a show.”

One Man, Two Guvnors is at Aylesbury Waterside Theatre until Saturday, then it it going to four other theatres before opening at the Adelphi Theatre on November 8.