Little Me. Matt Lucas
Marjorie’s ceaseless barbs with grace.
The audiences at the Jewish comedy nights were older than at most comedy clubs. They drank a lot less alcohol and didn’t particularly want to see sweary comedy. And it was at one such event in Palmers Green that my poor mother saw my act for the first time.
I was on the bill with my school friend Ashley Blaker. Ashley had been in the year below me at Haberdashers’ and we’d shared an interest in comedy and football. He used to do stand-up shows for charity at lunch break and hundreds would attend. Now, like me, he was starting to play the clubs, though his studies kept him from really making a fist of it.
Ashley had at least thought to come up with a few Jewish jokes for his set. There was nothing remotely Jewish about mine. As Sir Bernard cursed and screamed, my set – effective in the loud, smoky, combative atmosphere of a grotty pub backroom – played to total silence. My red-faced mum – who had been dubious enough when her son suddenly announced ‘I’m going to be a comedian’ – had brought a couple of friends and was understandably mortified by the whole thing. Is this what I had taken a year off for? As she drove us both home that night neither of us said much. Ashley too had generated more grumbles than laughs. He’d curtailed his set, telling the audience, ‘I know I’ve died tonight. If anyone’s interested, the shiva’s at my parents’.’ (If you’re Jewish, that’s a cracking joke, by the way.)
Autumn 1993. After a year on the circuit, having graduated from open spots to half-spots and now full twenty-minute paid spots in some of the smaller venues, and with agents starting to take an interest too, I put my stand-up career on hold and went off to Bristol University to study Theatre, Film and Television.
Within a few days of arriving there, I received a letter from Bob Mortimer. He said that there was going to be a new late-night ITV series called Comedy Club featuring stand-up comics and he thought I should audition for the producer, who he knew.
I phoned the Comedy Café and asked them if I could come down and do a short set. Bob and his girlfriend (now wife) Lisa came along, bringing the producer with them. Afterwards the producer said she’d love me to appear in the series. I was understandably thrilled. I was even more delighted to discover that I was going to be paid £600 – more than ten times what I’d normally get for a gig.
Comedy Club was taped on a Friday night at the Paris Studios in London. Backstage I sat waiting with Caroline Aherne, who I had seen on TV and been on the bill with a couple of times. She was doing her Sister Mary Immaculate character. I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was up close.
Some of the other acts could barely hide their surprise at my presence. They were all bill-toppers, seasoned pros, whereas I was not fully established throughout the London comedy scene. Many of them had seen me die a death, but there I was, on the same show and the same money as them. Despite my nerves, my set went down well, generating laughs in all the right places.
A few months later the show aired on TV. I was horrified – not only at my pale, sweating, tubby form onscreen, but also by the fact that my set had been trimmed down in the edit so much that almost all of the set-ups had been removed, so that while I appeared to get plenty of laughs, nothing made any sense. Worse, the large microphone obscured the lower half of my face. I had hoped that this appearance might help me get more club bookings, but many of the promoters I contacted told me that they had seen me on TV and didn’t think I was ready yet. It had done more harm than good!
Nonetheless I dug my heels in and continued to gig, and over the coming months I received more interest from TV producers. However, as much as I wanted to work in television I became anxious at the thought of having to surrender control to editors and producers. I was also concerned that I would be using up my best material on TV and would then have to drop it from my live act, as audiences would already be familiar with it. I wasn’t yet confident enough, prolific enough or funny enough to churn out dozens of new gags for each TV show – nor was I established enough to have writers working for me – so I became judicious with my TV appearances, preferring Sir Bernard to appear in conversation, rather than give away the most valuable jokes from my stand-up act.
My favourite TV appearance as Chumley was on Barrymore. Michael Barrymore was one of my heroes. While Vic and Bob were innovators on BBC Two, Barrymore was truly anarchic on primetime ITV. These days he’s remembered less for his work and more for events in his life, but at his peak he was in a league of his own. I was almost sleepless with excitement at the prospect of appearing on the sofa with him. He was perhaps the biggest comic in the country at the time, but he was generous and encouraging, both onscreen and off. Our chat finished with a duet – the Lee Dorsey hit ‘Working In The Coalmine’. I was allowed to choose the song and it amused me to pick the most random one I could think of.
Though I had intended to gig a lot less while at university, I found it hard to resist the lure of the spotlight. There were a couple of comedy clubs in Bristol which I would play, and I’d head off most weekends either to London or some far-flung corner of Britain to perform.
The best place to improve, though, was at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, not least because it was customary to take only one or two nights off. By gigging almost every night for a month, you could really sharpen and hone your act.
I went up four years in a row, the first time with Vic and Bob’s pal Dorian Crook in 1994, and the next three years with my funny friend David Williams – now Walliams, as there was already a David Williams in the actors’ union. As well as stand-up, the shows featured daft songs and we were joined by my university course mate Tim Atack on the keyboard.
It was during the Edinburgh Festival in 1995 that I had one of my most memorable gigs – and not for the right reasons . . .
Reeves and Mortimer had come to town, to headline a show at the Edinburgh Playhouse, which Mark Lamarr was hosting and which would also feature Harry Hill, Sean Lock and Charlie Chuck.
The gig was due to start at about 11 p.m. and the plan was for me to go on first and do ten minutes, and then dash off to the Assembly Rooms for my hour-long midnight show with David and Tim as usual.
However, on arriving at the Playhouse, I saw that the street was full of people waiting to get in. The ballet that was on before us was seriously over-running, so I went over to the Assembly Rooms, did my regular midnight show with David and Tim and then returned to the Playhouse, where the gig had finally begun.
I popped my head around the back of the auditorium. The audience – who had been kept waiting for over an hour – were not in a very generous mood. Addison Cresswell, who was promoting the gig, told me not to panic, that I had fifteen minutes before I was due on. What neither of us realised was that the act before me – who was having a bit of a nightmare – was cutting his set down radically as he went. Less than two minutes later I heard myself being introduced.
It was quarter to two in the morning. I walked out to the centre of the stage, blinded by the light. The place was sold out – there were over three thousand people there.
To my surprise – and relief – my opening few gags went down really well. My set was designed to reel them in with some humdingers at the start, before the more theatrical, surreal stuff would start to happen.
But on this night – or rather morning – the stranger stuff left the audience cold. And they stopped laughing. I was only supposed to do ten minutes, and the first three minutes had been great. The next two were a little quieter and then it started . . .
‘Get off!’ came the voice.
As I hadn’t had a laugh for a couple of minutes, I didn’t quite have the authority to take this heckler down, especially as he was joined by a couple more and then, within seconds, a couple more. Also, with the spotlight so bright in my eyes, I couldn’t see them, but I could hear that they were up on the balcony, miles away. Often in a small club you could wander over to the culprit, size them up and engage. Not here.
And now they could smell blood. There were maybe six of them in a room of over three thousand, but it was enough. They made so much noise that I was drowned out. To my credit I didn’t hang about. I got off stage within seconds.