Let's do the time warp again: Childhood photos recreated

Alan Carr I’m jealous of myself in this photo. For once in my life I look cute. I wish I still had blond hair. It’s like The Picture Of Dorian Gray. I’m about a year old, and my mum had the picture done in a department store in Weymouth. A friend of the family knitted the jumper. It says Alan on the front and AGC on the side. She also knitted my mum a red one with Christine on it... →
Photograph: Courtesy of Alan Carr, from Look Who It Is!, published by HarperCollins, £7.99

The photo captures me before my face was ravaged by cold sores. I got everything as a kid, anything that was disfiguring: blisters, eczema, psoriasis, cold sores. But here I have alabaster skin. There’s something lovely about looking at this. You just don’t know what’s in store for you, or the path you’ll take. I look innocent and angelic with my chubby face. But I’m so serious, I look as if I’m going to end up as a librarian.
Alan Carr's Spexy Beast tour begins in September.
Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Guardian. Thanks to Sara at John Lewis for the sweater

Miranda Hart This was me aged 12 in my parents’ village in Hampshire. It might make you think I was terribly gung ho and horsey, which I wasn’t at all. In fact, if you study the picture carefully, you can see I was slightly terrified. It was my neighbour’s horse and we were to get acquainted before I had a riding lesson on it. It didn’t work – it chucked me off within 20 minutes. That was my relationship with horses over... →
Photograph: Courtesy of Miranda Hart

When I look at old photos, I do that classic thing of thinking summers used to be perfect when we were children. It was always hot, the sky was beautiful. It makes me crave a lovely English summer. At that age I was very thin and limby, and slightly awkward. I certainly look considerably thinner than I do in the new version – though I was just as scared feeding this horse now as I was then.
Miranda Hart is on Comic Relief: Funny For Money on Friday 18 March on BBC1.
Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Guardian

Greg Davies When I asked my mother how old I was here, she said: “About two weeks, love. I know I was glad to get you out of me.” As hard as this may be to believe, there is a photo taken of me, earlier than this one, and I look even more like an alien in it... →
Photograph: Courtesy of Greg Davies

The photographer was my grandad, and my mum is holding me. She thinks she has labourer’s hands. I think her hand looks more like a claw. My mum has told me I was ­“humiliatingly enormous” compared with the other babies in the ward. I’m obviously still exactly the same.
Greg Davies appears on Dave's One Night Stand.
Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Guardian

Jessica Hynes When I see this picture of me at eight, I remember myself with a lot of affection. I was a little toughie, ­running around Brighton with my gang of mates, having a ball. My outfit is all about being ready for action. That was my major ­concern. I hated going out in anything other than good, hardy jeans. I’d have no bag, no coat, no jumper; just jeans, trainers, a house key round my neck and an endless summer day stretching out in front of me. It was an incredible feeling... →
Photograph: Courtesy of Jessica Hynes

I was a latchkey kid. I had a single mother who worked, so I let myself in and out of the house. Often I’d spend all day in the park. I had a lot of freedom and it’s informed me very much as an adult. There’s nothing I like more than travelling light and going out into the unknown.
Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Guardian

Sarah Millican In this photo I’m 11, in my older sister’s bedroom, in our house in South Shields. It was much bigger than mine and had a view of rooftops. I was always jealous because it looked like Coronation Street... →
Photograph: Courtesy of Sarah Millican

At school I was shy; a book reader who had few friends. But as soon as I got home, I was either prancing about in a leotard (we called it “gymlastics”) or reading my mam a poem from behind a curtain (due to stage fright). I think the mini performer I was would be happy to see me doing it for a living. Albeit with much less Lycra and with the curtain lifted.
Photograph: Courtesy Sarah Millican

Dom Joly This was taken in about 1975, in the courtyard of our house in Lebanon, in the hills above Beirut. I was about seven and I’m holding my ill-tempered cat, Camille, who was named after Camille Chamoun – the former Lebanese president and a Christian Phalangist warlord. This photo takes me back to living through the civil war in Lebanon. I love the visible corner of a big stone sarcophagus that we found in the Syrian desert... →
Photograph: Courtesy of Dom Joly

I am still as gormless as I look in that photo, but have lost a lot of weight since those “heavy” days.
Dom Joly's tour, Welcome To Wherever I Am, begins on 1 May.
Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Guardian

Jason Byrne I first got glasses when I was two. They were free National Health glasses and I had to go through hell because of them. Kids are cruel, but I was a good speaker. If someone said something to me, I would say something better back. That’s probably why I’m good with hecklers.
This picture is a school photo taken when I was five. Everyone would line up for their turn and you only got one click, so the photographer would have had no idea what the picture looked like... →
Photograph: Courtesy of Jason Byrne

My cheeks and chin are still exactly the same. My hair, of course, is much thinner. My mum always used to say my hair was brilliant. It was the colour of toffee. Women wanted to dye their hair the colour of mine.
Jason Byrne appears on Dave's One Night Stand.
Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Guardian. Thanks to Bromptons of Brighton opticians for the glasses

Shappi Khorsandi My brother Peyv and I have a real attachment to this photo. It’s our favourite. I look scared and so does he, but he has a brave little smile that says: “I’ll protect you. I might wet my pants in the process, but I’ll protect you.”
This is one of the last times our lives were carefree. We’re about four and five. We didn’t know England existed, had no idea what Wombles were; we were Iranian... →
Photograph: Courtesy of Shappi Khorsandi

Shortly after, we were up­rooted to England and never went back. Then family life was chaotic. My parents were getting to grips with a new culture and language, and we never knew if members of our family had survived another carpet bombing in Iran.
After this photo was taken, our destiny catapulted us into another life. But it’s how Peyv and I see one another: side by side, holding hands. Me and my brother against the world.
Shappi Khorsandi is currently on tour.
Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Guardian

Chris Addison There is something immensely moving about seeing two photos together like this. Partly it’s nostalgic – old photos are so of their time – and partly it makes me realise how much continuity there is. My mouth is like my son’s, and I can see my mum in my eyes. I’m wearing her hat and glasses in this picture, and I’m about four or five – around my son’s age... →
Photograph: Courtesy of Chris Addison

As with practically all my childhood photos, I have no memory of this one. The problem is they can become your childhood in your head if you’re not careful.
Chris Addison appears on Dave's One Night Stand.
Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Guardian

Jimmy Carr It’s an evocative thing to look back on a childhood photo. I think I’d be pleased at how I turned out. I was bored as a child, quite depressed, insular, shy and quiet. I wasn’t the class clown. I didn’t live that cliché.
I remember the school photo being awkward. It’s a weird thing when you smile but you’re not smiling with your eyes. I probably became more outgoing through doing comedy. As I’ve grown up, I’ve grown into myself... →
Photograph: Courtesy of Jimmy Carr

The years haven’t been kind. I was so fresh-faced at five. Now I look haggard and my brow is furrowed. I’ve always had eyes like piss-holes in the snow. And I’ve still got chubby cheeks. The other day a friend said, “Jimmy looks like he’s got Aids but he forgot to tell his face.” It’s always going to be chubby, cherubic.
Jimmy Carr: Making People Laugh is out on DVD.

Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Guardian

Russell Howard I’m four here. We’re in the playground in Weymouth, where we used to live. I remember our dad saying, “Who can hang on here for the longest?” in a desperate attempt to get me and my brother to be still. You can see the pain etched on my face. We had a lot of games like that; there was who can hide the longest, and who can kick a football at the other’s head the hardest... →
Photograph: Courtesy of Russell Howard

Hopefully I don’t look as piggy as that any more. Although I do have a lazy eye, which actually looks all right in this picture. And I haven’t got an outy bellybutton now. That went in when I was about 13. The weirdest thing is that I still dress exactly like that. I’m still in scruffy trainers, jeans and zip-up tops.
Russell Howard's Good News returns to BBC3 on 24 March.
Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Guardian. Thanks to Footloose Socks for the belt

Jon Holmes This was a photograph taken by my dad when I was about three, outside our house at the time, in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. I think I was “helping” him change a tyre... →
Photograph: Courtesy of Jon Holmes

Presumably my dad thought by dressing me in his cap, giving me a toy pipe and making me hold a car jack, I would somehow be inspired to grow up to be a useful and practical man, like him. He was wrong. I can no more change a tyre than I could change that stupid hat into a rabbit.
Jon Holmes presents a show on 6 Music on Saturdays.
Photograph: Courtesy John Holmes