Little Me. Matt Lucas
that and I knew it would probably be a long time before I’d be getting paid to perform, so I started to look for a day job.
Previously, while doing my A levels, I’d added to my pocket money by working as a babysitter. I didn’t get much work – most parents told me that they would rather have a girl minding their children – but after I placed an advert in the synagogue magazine, one couple, Clive and Michelle Pollard, contacted me and I started looking after their kids on a Saturday evening.
Clive manufactured and imported football merchandise – like those mini-kits you see in car windows – and had the contract to sell his wares at Wembley Stadium and in various football club shops. He had also just won the contract to run the shop at Chelsea Football Club. I was Arsenal through and through, but, keen to fund my stand-up career, give my mum some money and aware that jobs were hard to come by in the recession-hit Britain of 1992, I asked Clive for a job.
‘We’re looking for an assistant manager,’ he said.
‘Yeah, I can do that.’
‘You’re only eighteen.’
‘Well, I’m old enough to be trusted with your kids,’ I replied. He said it was a good enough answer to get me a job, and so it was agreed that I would help set up the shop and work there during my year off.
The job kept me busy through the day, and during the evenings I set about launching my comedy career in earnest.
I began by writing a dreadful routine at the desk in my bedroom. The set took the form of a long, rambling theatrical anecdote about events at a party Sir Bernard had attended. He name-dropped frequently – but often got the names a bit wrong – Bruce Wallace, Mel Gibbons – and invariably I would use the name-drop simply as an excuse to do an impression of a particular celebrity – Jimmy Savile, Jim Bowen. I had no idea what I was doing and, in truth, my desire to perform and be acclaimed for it outweighed any particular comedic message I wanted to deliver.
My meteoric rise was carefully planned. I would do my first open spot at the Punchlines in West Hampstead on Saturday, 3 October 1992. I would perform the following evening at the club for open spots that Ivor had recommended – the VD Clinic (which promoter Kevin Anderson said stood for Val Doonican). And then on the Thursday night I would crush it at London’s premier venue, the Comedy Store. In less than a week I would be a star. Job done.
What confidence. What delusion. But then I was only eighteen years old.
Actually I ended up having an unofficial first gig a few weeks earlier, somewhat spontaneously. David Williams and his friend Jason were performing at the Comedy Café in Rivington Street. On a Wednesday night the club traditionally featured a bunch of open spots. The first to arrive and put their names down on the list would get a slot. I had gone along with my friend Jeremy to watch David and Jason perform and, on learning that there was a space on the bill, couldn’t resist putting my name down, so eager was I to get on the stage – and also to impress David and Jason.
I was one of the last to go up. I didn’t have my costume. I had written my act down a few weeks before, but hadn’t actually learned it yet (not that it would have made much difference, devoid as it was of any actual jokes). I busked it, as they say. And it didn’t go down well.
Sir Bernard’s tale about the events at his showbiz soirée ended with his arse exploding and faeces landing on the faces of various celebrities . . .
‘There was shit on the ceiling, caca on the carpet, dump on the dining table, poo on the porcelain . . . I didn’t know where to look. And I turned to Felicity Ken-dell and I said “Felicity, you’ve grown a moustache” but she hadn’t – a bit of poo had deflected off the ceiling and landed on her upper lip!’
In my set I had contrived a reason for this arse explosion that involved Sir Bernard having been born in India and therefore being caught in some sort of ‘Anglo-Asian curry zone’. I know it doesn’t make any sense. I’m sure it didn’t then, either. But as soon as I mentioned about coming from India, some of the audience started shouting ‘Racist!’ I was taken aback. I hadn’t done an Indian accent or made any further comment, but the table of young men had had enough. I wasn’t quite booed off, but everyone in the room could hear the reaction. I hurried through to the end of the set and got off.
Jeremy and I left the venue quickly, my heart racing as I sat on the Tube back to Edgware station, trying to process what had happened. It was clear that I would have to make some big changes to my set before my first ‘official’ gig.
A few weeks later I turned up at the Punchlines club for my proper debut. I knew the place well, having been a regular punter there for a year or two. Despite being underage, I would flash my fake ID and make half a pint last the night as I watched some of Britain’s finest up-and-coming comedians take the stage.
I certainly hadn’t been shy in letting people know about the big event and much of the audience was made up of friends (and their friends and their friends etc.).
When it was my turn to appear, the compère gave me a warm introduction. I had a pre-recorded intro on tape, which featured some speeded-up music that I had found in my parents’ record collection, and me introducing myself in a bad Northern accent – ‘Live from Barry Island . . .’
Why would a theatrical raconteur be in Barry Island and why was a Northern voice introducing him? And why was I pretending to be a theatrical raconteur? I barely even knew what one was. I’m sure the audience had no idea, either. It made little sense.
It also wasn’t that funny.
But I needed to be onstage. Despite the confidence I’d got from those Youth Theatre appearances, I was still desperately unhappy, scared, freaked out by the events of my youth, by my paleness, baldness, fatness, gayness, otherness. Like many before me, and countless others since, I was convinced that becoming successful and achieving public recognition was the only way my sad story could end happily.
I was happy to use anything and everything I had in my pursuit. Sir Bernard was bald, though for much of the routine he proudly sported the wig that I had thrown in the cupboard a few years earlier.
The wig might have come out of the closet. I hadn’t – yet. But Sir Bernard was so gay that I partly hoped it wouldn’t occur to anyone that I wasn’t. He would do my coming out for me, I hoped. I wouldn’t have to say the words or live the life. I could hide in plain sight, at turns celebrating and mocking homosexuality, playing to both gay people and those who found gayness absurd, dancing nimbly backwards and forwards either side of the line.
Now people would laugh with me, not at me. I would control it.
The compère – Dave Thompson, later to find fame as Tinky Winky in Teletubbies – introduced me. The audience hollered loudly at my entrance and I sprinted on. I hadn’t considered how long the introductory music was (i.e. far too long) and, eager to fill the time, spontaneously broke into a wild dance, which drew laughter. Ever the fat, sedentary asthmatic, by the time the music came to an end I was breathless.
That night I wheezed and panted my way through my muddled little routine. Each lame joke was greeted with a supportive cheer from those who knew me, rather than a laugh. Those who didn’t know me would doubtless have been utterly bemused.
At the end of my act there were wild cheers. I took the applause – a little embarrassed, because I knew, despite the response, that it hadn’t worked on a comedic level. Dave came back onstage and the audience continued to applaud. He generously waited there and acknowledged the reception I was getting.
And what did I do? Well, because I am a bloody idiot, I stood behind him, signalled in his direction and did the ‘Wanker’ hand-sign.
Why did I do that?
I can only think that I was just trying to generate another laugh. I was eighteen years old and unprepared for – and giddied by – the audience’s applause. However, not only was my response unprofessional, it was also completely unwarranted, but that didn’t occur to me in the moment.
I