Little Me

by Matt Lucas

  And slowly … things got a little better. Even when my academic results were low, I at least got credit for applying myself. It was a patronising but effective way to work with someone in my situation.

  At the end of the second year I lost all that weight and got the part in The Roman Invasion of Ramsbottom. The year after, I made my West End debut and my confidence continued to rocket as I took parts in other school productions, playing Mr Hardcastle in She Stoops To Conquer and Mr Thwackum in Tom Jones.

  In the third year, young Mr Rossotti – now my English teacher – made a bold decision to set aside the recommended reading list for a term and allow us to choose our own reading matter. While my classmates selected Dickens, Orwell, Tolkien (anything that might impress), I plumped for an altogether less salubrious option.

  My stepsister Barbra, four years my elder, had recently been championing the works of Jackie Collins. Indeed, her shelf had begun to groan as her collection of Ms Collins’ novels grew, such was her admiration for the author’s work. I took her sage advice and brought Hollywood Husbands with me into the classroom. Mr Rossotti was a little surprised but, as he had encouraged us to pick whatever we liked, he probably felt it would be unfair to ban or even criticise my selection.

  None of us were prepared for the revolution that would soon take place. I devoured the contents within a handful of days (and the same number of sleepless nights) and handed the book with a glowing recommendation to a classmate, while I graduated to Hollywood Wives. Lucky followed, then Chances, then The Bitch, The Stud, The World Is Full of Married Men and The World Is Full of Divorced Women. By this time, nearly half the class had set aside C. S. Lewis and William Golding so they could learn about the lurid sexual exploits of Gino Santangelo, Sadie LaSalle and Muffin.

  It all came to a head one Monday morning when an exasperated Mr Rossotti decided enough was enough. He excused himself for a couple of moments, then reappeared in a sweat, carrying a tower of books – each one a copy of Graham Greene’s The Third Man. The experiment was over.

  Outside the classroom, no matter how many school plays you performed in or orchestras you joined, the school was most proud of its sporting achievements – though my attempts to contribute didn’t work out too well.

  In the first year I had volunteered as scorer for the cricket team, though I was summarily dismissed from my duties after a single match for putting down nicknames in the log book instead of surnames.

  A couple of years later I found, to my surprise, that I rather enjoyed playing hockey. I started outfield, where my low centre of gravity actually seemed to work to my advantage. My asthma and my generally poor level of fitness, however, soon led me to become a goalkeeper.

  I was quite fearless and, with padding on, was happy to dive all over the place. Had I finally found my sporting métier? My pal Jake Moore was taller and broader than me, and so it made sense that he would be goalie for the A team and in early practices I was goalie for the B team. I was delighted and actually I was pretty good, though I say so myself. Mr Talbot himself would holler encouragement from the corner flag – ‘Lucas! Great save!’

  And then Jayesh Makan happened.

  Jayesh Makan came along one day to hockey practice, picked up the goalkeeping pads, put them on and took his place in goal.

  Eh? Had he not got the memo?

  Worse, he was really good. The bugger.

  By the time we started to play competitively, against other schools, Jayesh was the B team goalie.

  No one told me I wasn’t required at practice anymore and so I continued to go along. I’d sit on the sidelines until Jake or Jayesh had decided they’d had enough and then I’d quickly put the pads on for the last few minutes.

  One day I arrived at practice before any of the other boys and sat patiently in the changing room as usual. In walked one of the younger teachers, who assisted Mr Talbot in running the sessions.

  ‘Come on then, what are you waiting for?’ he asked.

  ‘Jayesh, sir,’ I replied.

  ‘Never mind Jayesh. If you’re here first, you get to play.’

  I liked this new rule.

  I put the kit on and was fully dressed by the time Jayesh arrived. He took one look at me and went to inform Mr Talbot, who then came in and screamed at me in front of the whole squad.

  ‘How dare you?! HOW DARE YOU?! Who do you think you are?! You know that Jayesh is in goal! Take those pads off immediately! Disgraceful behaviour! Outrageous!’

  On and on he ranted. I looked at the younger teacher and waited for him to step in.

  ‘Ah, sorry, Mr Talbot. Yes, I told Lucas that as he was here first, he could play in goal today’ … is what he should have said. But he didn’t say a bloody word. I can only surmise he was as petrified of Mr Talbot as the rest of us.

  With everyone else laughing their heads off, and Jayesh the victor, I peeled off the kit and handed it to him, head bowed.

  A few weeks later I got my revenge – on Mr Talbot, that was. Not on Jayesh, nor the younger teacher (who still teaches at the school, which is why I’ve not mentioned his name!).

  Well, I say revenge. It was actually accidental. One of the sixthformers tapped me on the shoulder one lunchtime. Their keeper was away and they were about to practise on the all-weather pitch. Would I be up for going in goal that afternoon?

  Absolutely. I had a couple of free periods and some boots in my locker. I managed to borrow some mouldy old kit thanks to Jim, the avuncular Irish caretaker who lived in a cupboard in the PE corridor.

  I jogged up to the all-weather pitch and took my place in goal, impressing all with my prowess. Like I say, I wasn’t too bad.

  At the end of the session I went to collect some balls that had been left behind. Looking down, I made the dreadful discovery that my rugby boots had ripped up about a third of the surface of the pitch.

  Now, let me say, that all-weather pitch was Mr Talbot’s pride and joy. Nothing meant more to him than that pitch. Its surface was state-ofthe-art and had cost tens of thousands of pounds. It was ours to play on, to improve, to enjoy, but whatever we did, we were NEVER to go on it with the incorrect footwear.

  ‘Talbot’s looking for you. Have you seen him yet?’

  ‘Did you hear Talbot’s asking where you are?’

  ‘Did Ken catch up with you?’ (He was called Ken sometimes because he was the spit of Ken Dodd.)

  This question – and various other incarnations of it – was asked of me several times a day over the next couple of weeks, as I sought to avoid the raging, tracksuited fireball that was Keith Talbot.

  I did everything I could to steer clear of the PE corridor, but one day in the playground I turned around and he was there. I braced myself, ready for the hairdryer treatment. Alex Ferguson had nothing on Keith Talbot. He could see the panic in my eyes. I saw him pause and then he spoke very calmly.

  ‘You’ve been avoiding me, haven’t you, son?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I was very upset to see the state of the pitch. That’s going to cost an awful lot of money to repair, Matthew, and the lads won’t be able to play on it for a while now. They’re very disappointed. But I know you didn’t mean it.’

  And with that he walked off. He was full of surprises, that man, but even when he was boiling over, I still thought he was great. Unlike some of the other staff, years of teaching a bunch of entitled brats had not made him weary or cynical. He cared.

  I left sport to the big boys and went back to doing plays and banging drums in the orchestra.

  I stumbled through five years at Habs. I want to say I came out relatively unscathed, but I don’t think I can. There were pockets of humanity there, moments of humour and warmth – but not enough. Some flourished; I didn’t. Not really. I believe that nowadays the school is not only focused on academic results but that it engages more with the wellbeing of its pupils and has a greater appreciation of their differing abilities and needs. But back then, despite my achievements in the school plays and my
contribution to the various bands and orchestras, I felt weighed down, and not just by my own physical bulk. Where did my childhood go? Maybe it was exacerbated by difficulties in my home life, but nonetheless that place never became a refuge.

  We were constantly told how we represented the school wherever we went. Well, the school represented us too, and not always helpfully. Years later, at university, I learned that Haberdashers’ was almost a national byword for arrogance, a sense of superiority. Despite being somewhere near the very bottom of the pile there, it still took me a long time to learn humility – years and years, even, to understand what it was. I simply hadn’t been exposed to it very often.

  The school was, however, a hotbed of creativity. I was far from the only voice. A small number of us left Habs and disregarded expectations of becoming a doctor, lawyer or hedge fund manager, and made our way instead into the world of comedy.

  David Baddiel led the charge. I followed. Close on my heels was Sacha Baron Cohen.

  Sacha had been in my older brother’s class. Sacha, my brother and a couple of others had bonded over a shared love of hip hop. There was lino on the floor of the kitchen at Sacha’s house and my brother had gone there to practise some breakdancing. I remember visiting the Baron Cohen residence with my mum in 1982, aged eight, to collect Howard. I was very impressed, having never met someone with a double-barrelled name in real life before.

  Dan Mazer, who co-wrote and produced much of Sacha’s work, was in the year below him. Robert Popper, who created Friday Night Dinner, was a few years older. Dean Nabarro, Dean Craig, Chris Little, David Tyler and Steve Hall were all alumni and have also gone on to either write, produce or star in TV comedy.

  The last mention goes to Ashley Blaker, a wittier man than I’ll ever be and one to whom I owe a great debt. He’s co-written and produced much of my work, but these days you’ll find him selling out synagogues and theatres both here and in the US, as Britain’s only orthodox Jewish comedian.

  Some nice clangs there, you’ll agree. In fact, Steve Hall used to be in the comedy troupe We Are Klang, so maybe I should change the spelling.

  My final year at Haberdashers’ started out being the easiest and probably ended up being the hardest.

  In the summer holiday I had grown friendly with some boys from my year that I hadn’t known very well before. One balmy hot Saturday afternoon four of us decided to go up to the West End. We smoked, cheeked passers-by and mooched around the shops. Day turned to night and we were out for hours, just laughing and idling away the time. There was a chemistry, a sense of freedom. We were independent in a way we hadn’t been before.

  A little clique formed, with the four of us at the centre, then grew and grew until it contained about a third of the year. Suddenly fifty of the boys – the sporty ones, the street-wise ones, the good-looking ones – would gather at the home of the ringleader – a diminutive blond boy I will call JJ.

  JJ lived with his mum, a former TV presenter; his stunning brother, a hairdresser who whizzed around on a motorbike and told us he had had trials at Arsenal before injury put a stop to his career; and their pretty sister, who looked a bit like Patsy Kensit.

  They were great fun, and they seemed to be so much more chilled out than my family. They had big dogs everywhere, Sky TV and their fridge and freezer was full of all sorts of delicious processed food that we saw advertised on TV and which my mother would never buy.

  It was there that I had my first ever Mars ice cream bar.

  It was there that I smoked my first ever joint.

  And it was there that we generally assembled, most Saturday nights, drinking and partying. Sometimes JJ, our pied piper, would lead us to the local park, where we’d break in, neck rum and spin on the roundabout until we puked. Back at the house we’d blast music so loud that the police would come round, then return half an hour later, while JJ’s mum, roll-up hanging from her lips, would nod obediently, before shutting the door, waiting until they were out of earshot and shouting ‘All coppers are bastards!’

  JJ’s parties were the talk of the school. Everybody would be angling for an invite. And the four of us at the centre of the clique would decide on a whim whether to grant their wish. Our influence and popularity seemed to grow by the day, as we wielded this new power malevolently. We spread gossip, created drama, respecting and fearing no one. We were fifteen and we were horrible, basically.

  And for the first time, socially, I was thriving. My crowning moment had come at one of the parties. I had already gone to bed, but someone had drunkenly remembered I could be vaguely amusing on occasion. I was irritated to be woken up at first, but then I saw that I had an audience, including some of the handsome, sporty boys.

  I seized the moment, sat in my sleeping bag on a chair in the living room and improvised for an hour, impersonating the teachers, pupils, staff and anyone else who came to mind. It was probably the funniest I’ve ever been. Everything I said brought the house down. Looking back, maybe that was the moment I realised I might have a gift – not just as an actor, but as someone who could come up with the funnies too. On the Monday back at school, I was congratulated again and again, and made to repeat the impressions. I was flying high.

  And then – rather to my annoyance – I turned up at JJ’s the following Saturday to discover someone had invited some girls along.

  Oh.

  Suddenly everyone’s attention was on these girls, and they now became a permanent fixture in the group. Even my friend Robert, who I had assumed was as gay as a daffodil, couldn’t stop putting his tongue down that Helen’s throat.

  As ever, I was still waiting for those straight feelings to arrive.

  I started to become a shadow at the party. Week after week we’d all be getting along fine, and then after a few drinks everyone was just sort of kissing and touching each other. I would wander around the house, petting the dogs, nicking another choc ice, rolling another joint. Sometimes I even just put myself to sleep in JJ’s bed, while everyone else was downstairs having a love-in.

  One Saturday night I was a bit under the weather and I stayed at home. I turned on the TV and a film came on that blew me away. I couldn’t get over how funny and fresh it was.

  The following weekend I arrived at JJ’s house, later than usual, clutching a video tape I’d just bought in town.

  ‘Guys, you have to see this.’

  No one was interested, but I insisted. Prising apart various kissing couples, I turned off the music and made everyone gather around the TV. I put the cassette into the VCR, dimmed the lights and waited for the others to be converted, like I had …

  … to the magic of Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece Modern Times.

  ‘What the hell is this?’

  ‘No, trust me. Trust me.’

  ‘Charlie fucking Chaplin?’

  ‘Seriously, this is amazing. Trust me on this.’

  I had them for a minute or two, but no more. They wanted to drink, to smoke, to screw – and I wanted to watch a black-and-white film. What was I thinking of?

  I still love that film today, but whenever I watch it I am reminded of that night in 1990. It was the beginning of the end for me.

  I should have seen it coming. I had, after all, been pretty instrumental in helping to create the monster.

  In our group had been a guy called Richard – not the same Richard I mentioned in the last chapter – but another guy who, predictably, we’d labelled as gay.

  The conclusion had some basis in fact. At a sleepover a few years earlier, when we were maybe just twelve, he had been caught cuddling up to and stroking one of the other boys and I had recounted this tale to the group. I outed him, basically.

  I hadn’t necessarily thought that it would haunt the boy as much as it would go on to do – like I said, everyone was constantly outing everyone anyway, with little evidence. But this time it stuck, and unlike poor Richard Hudson, who clearly wasn’t gay but who we’d hounded anyway, we didn’t ever really say anything directly to this
boy. No, this was a more cowardly, insidious form of bullying. We badmouthed him, turned him into a pariah, exiled him from the group without ever explaining why, or even telling him that he wasn’t wanted.

  The group had started to flourish on this kind of behaviour, to define itself by it, almost. There was a faint whiff of Lord of the Flies about the whole thing, to be honest, a brand of cruelty particularly distinctive to that age, that time in our lives when we are perhaps at our least empathetic.

  We were so drunk on our power that sometimes we even just informed someone at random that the party was going to be at their place the next Saturday.

  ‘But my parents are going to be in.’

  You might get a sympathetic shrug but you wouldn’t get a reprieve.

  We would arrive at the house, raid the fridge and guzzle the contents of the cocktail cabinet. We’d put metal objects in the microwave and watch the explosion. Whoever’s house it was would be running around tearing their hair out. We thought it was funny.

  After we’d banished our friend from the group for being gay, it was another boy’s turn. This one’s crime? He exaggerated things too much. In our eyes he had become the biggest liar the world had ever seen. No matter that he had been a friend I often met up with outside school, whose mum had welcomed me and my pal Robert to their home. Sorry, mate.

  And then it was my turn.

  One night, midway through the school year, the four of us were sleeping in the garage at JJ’s house. We were discussing plans for the summer. It had been suggested months earlier that three or four of us might go interrailing around Europe together, to celebrate the end of our GCSEs. Over the coming weeks the size and scale of the trip had grown – there were now a dozen of us intending to go, and we often found ourselves talking about it.

  Then the topic of conversation took a turn. I think it might have been planned, actually …

  ‘Why don’t you have a girlfriend, Matt?’ asked JJ.

  I was silent for maybe a second too long.

  ‘I dunno really. I guess I’m not very confident with girls.’