Mark Dolan is best-known to viewers as the stand-up comedian and host of the anarchic Friday night show Balls of Steel.

Well, the idea actually came from the production company, but it’s a very happy accident that I got involved with this show. I’ve always been absurdly tall - I’m 6’5” - and I was very tall throughout my teens. I always had to go and sit down on the front row in school photos - so I felt a great empathy with anyone who was very tall or tiny, or just a bit different physically. So once I had the opportunity to go and meet the smallest man in the world, or the tallest woman in the world, I jumped at the chance. I wanted to see how being that different physically affects your life experience.

Well, it’s not a conscious decision to move away from comedy, but it was an opportunity to come out of a very formatted environment, and to make a TV show that involved being away for weeks at a time travelling, seeing different parts of the world, meeting all sorts of extraordinary people. It was just an opportunity that I couldn’t turn down. When it comes to the tone of the show, I think some of the shows, such as the world’s hairiest man, there’s more room to have a bit of fun. With these little people, once you actually get to know their story, it’s often quite tragic, there’s not really much room for comedy.

I think perhaps I was particularly fascinated with the tall women. Our perception of genders is based very much on size. We expect women to be smaller than men, so to meet a woman who’s 7’9” tall was extraordinary. That was Yao De Fen, who is the tallest woman in the world. She’s not officially the tallest, because she’s not been through the strict official channels demanded by The Guinness Book of Records, but I met her and I measured her, and she is 7’9”. I was fascinated to meet her because the way she looks is so contradictory to our perception of what a woman is.

Yes, I don’t think I’d ever met a woman taller than me until making the programme. For a woman to be even 6ft is pretty extraordinary. I started my journey at a tall person’s club in Arizona, and I met a woman called Ellen, who was the first very tall woman I met. She was 6’10” - she was a good head taller than I was. She towered over me, and when I hugged her, my head was actually on her chest, which was exciting - a personal goal achieved, to be nestled in a woman’s bosom without having to kneel down.

Yes. Just because you’re very small or very tall doesn’t mean you have something physically wrong with you. But they all suffer huge personal challenges, because of the way society treats them, and the practicalities of daily life. I found that almost all of the characters I met are hugely dependent on friends and family. Most of them find it very difficult to find love. Most can’t work. So although physically many have prevailed over their circumstances, the problems they face are still extremely significant.

I think that one of the smallest men in the world, Yu Chih, from Taiwan, has achieved a remarkable amount in his life. He’s written a play which was performed in Taipei, he’s written a book, he runs a major charity in aid of brittle bone disease, from which he suffers. He’s had one or two long-term relationships. He has a very full and active life. And that’s in spite of the fact that he’s incredibly small and confined to a wheelchair. I was full of admiration for him. The smallest men in the world who I met all had completely different personalities, there was no pattern. It was very interesting. Khagendra was incredibly childlike.

That’s right. He was like a toddler, even though he was 16-years-old. Before I met him, I determined to make every effort to treat him as a man, not to patronise him or pick him up and cuddle him like I do with my own son. But he turned out to be just like a child, which was very confusing. But I became very fond of him, he was an utterly loveable character. He was perhaps the happiest, most carefree of all the small people I met. I think it was because he was oblivious to his status, he lived in a small, safe world with his parents.

A lot of them had people surrounding them who had a great stake in their being the smallest or tallest or hairiest, and were mindful of the money and status that went with it, but I didn’t find any of them unscrupulous or manipulative. At worst they were well-meaning amateurs. But unfortunately, the consequences can be just as destructive. I was concerned that Khagendra performs exhibitions in which he dances for hours with a small knife in front of huge crowds. It broke my heart to think that he was being paraded in that way.

According to leading tricologists, you cannot measure for hairiness, which is why you won’t find the category in the Guinness Book of Records. We’re all incredibly hairy - the average male has 5.1 million hair follicles - it’s just a case of the length and shade of the hair. What we have is the naked eye. There’s a large family in Mexico, who have claim to be the hairiest people in the world. I met one of them, who moved to America and joined the circus, and his name is Larry. His face is absolutely, completely covered in hair - matted, layered, thick hair, like a full facial beard. It covers his nose, his forehead, his eyelids. He was perhaps the most physically extraordinary person I met. He was just like a human bear, and I was shocked when I first shook him by the hand.

Yes. In fact, a lot of the hairy men are extremely proud of how they look. On a practical level, it’s a living - in the circus, or in side-shows, or television work. I asked all of the hairy men whether, if they could, they’d take a pill and the hair would be gone, and they said no. I felt it wasn’t just about their livelihood, it was their identity. The Mexican culture is a pretty hairy culture anyway - growing a beard is a sign of masculinity. So to be extra hairy just means that you’re more manly.

They suffer from the condition too, and they don’t like it. I met several daughters who have the condition - it’s less severe in women. But they found it to have no positives whatsoever - they were not proud of their hairiness. They shave every day, which must be a very awkward process.

At first glance, it doesn’t fit with the theme of the series, which is learning about the human condition and how society treats people who are different. However, having met the owners of these pets, I’ve discovered that if you allow your dog to become morbidly obese, or you have a preoccupation with tall dogs, then it speaks volumes about the owner. And, of course, this is really a film about the owners.

I encountered a huge amount of stupidity and ignorance from the owners of very fat animals, but not cruelty. It was about the wrong type of food and a sedentary lifestyle, and a misguided expression of love. I didn’t meet any owner whose animal was fat because they were cruel. But it is a cruel state for an animal to get into.

Yeah, we were travelling off-and-on for three months. It’s very selfish of all these extraordinary people to live in such far-flung places. It would’ve been so much easier to make the series if they all lived in Soho. I could’ve gone for lunch at The Ivy with the world’s tallest woman. But one of the extraordinary parts of this experience has been the places it has taken me to. I’ve been to Inner Mongolia, which was about -25 degrees outside during the day, incredibly barren and dramatic. It was a great privilege to go to these places you wouldn’t normally visit. I’ve seen people living in major cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Taipei, but also very basic rural communities. I’ve seen all aspects of how the human body can manifest itself, but also all contexts of wealth and social position and environment.