Little Me

by Matt Lucas

  Things didn’t work out with Mum’s relationship and she soon found herself on the singles circuit. Ever the hostess with the mostest, Saturday nights frequently saw a trail of fellow divorcees arrive at the house for tea and sympathy. I enjoyed the company of my mum’s battle-worn new friends, who’d doll themselves up to prove they still had it, and who’d make a fuss of me. I’d nosily sit in on their conversations, following their dramas for as long as I was allowed, before Mum would send me off to do my homework.

  Every so often Mum would introduce me to a new beau. I liked some more than others, but none compared to the man she met a decade after the split, and who she would eventually marry – Ralph. They’ve been together for over twenty years now. He’s warm, kind and smart – what we Jewish people call ‘a proper mensch’. We don’t have a father anymore, but we do have a loving stepfather, and another stepbrother, stepsister and their kids too. We’re spoilt. Mum and Ralph are very happy together. They play bridge. They watch Strictly. They go on countless cruises and always return having made new friends.

  My mum – like all good Jewish mothers – enjoys cooking. She loves to serve up roast chicken and roast potatoes and tell you that there’s plenty more, insisting you have seconds, and then, as you leave, pointing out that you could really do with losing a bit of weight.

  She likes some of Little Britain, but not the rude bits. She didn’t mind Come Fly with Me. She doesn’t understand Doctor Who – but then who does? If it was up to her, I’d probably still be in Les Misérables. Oh, and she read an early draft of this book and said it was ‘all a bit Tears of a Clown’.

  My brother and I speak or message most days. It’s usually nonsense – silly photos we’ve seen online or football-related stuff. If he’s at work and I’m watching the match on telly, I’ll point my phone at the TV, film the goals on it and WhatsApp them to him. The bickering of our childhood has long since faded.

  My father was surrounded by a loving family and had many friends, but he worked all hours, day and night, just to make ends meet for the last decade of his life. His efforts, and the accompanying stress, not to mention his heavy smoking habit, eventually caught up with him.

  In November 1996 I was on tour, doing the Shooting Stars live show. Dad had driven to Reading on a Sunday night with Andie, Barbra and Darren to see the show. I hadn’t seen him for five weeks as I’d been on the road and I was astounded by how skeletal he looked. He even had a walking stick – maybe two, if memory serves me right. He told me that he had a doctor’s appointment the next morning. I was extremely shaken to see him so thin and frail and barely slept that night.

  While on the tour bus the following morning, I received a phone call from him. He explained that the doctor had told him he’d had a virus but the good news was that it had gone. Now he needed to get his strength back and put on some weight again.

  The following day we travelled through the night from Cambridge to Glasgow on the tour bus, and had just arrived at a hotel around 9 a.m. It was a rare day off and I was looking forward to having a kip and then catching a film.

  My phone rang. It was my stepbrother Darren. He told me that my father had died. I made him repeat himself five or six times, because my brain wouldn’t take the news in.

  He’d had a massive heart attack in the kitchen of his home, causing him to fall. Darren and Barbra heard the noise and rushed downstairs. Darren tried to give him the kiss of life, but he was dead within a minute or two. We wondered if the fall had contributed to or even caused his death but the post-mortem revealed that the heart attack itself would have been fatal.

  The tour was suspended for a week and a half. I flew straight back to London, meeting my mother, brother and grandmother at the airport. I was too distressed to give a speech at the funeral, though Darren – who had already lost his own father – spoke eloquently about lightning striking twice.

  I was so traumatised by my father’s sudden death that my brain instantly locked away almost all of the memories I had of him, as if to protect me, I guess – or them. I still don’t know where they are.

  As I mourned, I realised I was not just grieving for his death, but also for much of his life. I spent the next few years lost, outside things, utterly bereft and refusing to believe that I could ever heal. Despite the love of my family and friends, it wasn’t until 2002, when I met Kevin McGee, that I started to experience happiness again.

  I finally met Sooty, Sweep and Soo!

  Fascinating paparazzi shot of man rifling through satchel, must have fetched millions

  O – Oh Look, it’s Thingy

  When I was six years old, my mum and dad took me and Howard to the London Palladium to see the Christmas pantomime Dick Whittington and His Cat. It starred Jim Davidson, Mollie Sugden, Windsor Davies, Lionel Blair, Melvyn Hayes and Clive Dunn. I was breathless with excitement at the prospect of seeing these big stars in real life and I wasn’t disappointed. The show was delightful and I laughed like a drain. Throughout the performance I could scarcely comprehend that ‘little me’ was actually in the same room as them, and yet it felt logical too. I watched these people frequently on TV. They were my friends.

  I enjoyed going to the cinema, but theatre became my true love. Often my Grandma Margot (she was from Germany so you pronounced the ‘t’) would take me into central London to see matinees in the school holidays. At her prompting, we would hover at the stage door afterwards. As the actors appeared in their civvies, I’d hesitate, and then she’d push me forward towards them. ‘Tell them you are an actor,’ she’d say. I met Su Pollard, who chatted like we were old friends, and later Michael Gambon, Judi Dench, Topol and even a quiet, shy Gene Wilder. Bernard Hill kindly invited us in from the rain.

  For my tenth birthday outing I went to see Singin’ in the Rain. I dearly wanted to meet the star of the show, Tommy Steele, and went to speak to the stage doorman before the performance to ask if Tommy would be signing autographs afterwards. He gruffly told me not to get my hopes up. I spent the whole evening feeling sad and rejected.

  After a matinee performance of 42nd Street I was hoping to meet Frankie Vaughan, but the company manager told us he always had a sleep between shows. He did sign my programme, though, and it was sent back out to me. I was chuffed to bits.

  Mum took me to see the musical Time and afterwards we joined a line of maybe twenty fans waiting to get Cliff Richard’s autograph. Mum had told me many times how she’d been at an exhibition in her early teens, waiting for hours to meet the harmonica player Larry Adler, when an announcement was made – Larry was ill and instead an aspiring pop star named Cliff Richard would be appearing. My mum took one look at the spotty little imp, screwed up her face and left. He went on to become a megastar; she became a dedicated fan and spent the next thirty years kicking herself. Finally we were going to meet the man himself.

  The first lady in the queue asked for the autograph to be personalised to her, and Sir Cliff apologised. He politely explained that he had a reservation at a restaurant with friends and last orders were in half an hour, so he hoped we’d understand if he just signed his name. The lady accepted this, and Sir Cliff signed.

  The second person in the queue, either having not heard the conversation or just pushing her luck, also asked for a personalised autograph and Sir Cliff patiently took maybe thirty seconds to explain again why he was only signing his name tonight.

  The next person made the same request and Sir Cliff gave the same reply, and was made to do so again and again, to everyone in the queue. I guess he couldn’t have said no to the first few people and then yes to the others.

  I watched with fascination as he diligently repeated this refrain, and couldn’t help but think that he could have written The Mahābhārata by now and be round the corner tucking into coq au vin and a glass of Shloer. You will know by now that I can be a bit of a shitbag, so it won’t surprise you to learn that I too couldn’t resist making the same request. I wasn’t too fussed as to whether I got a personalised autograph
or not, but by then it seemed like a rite of passage just to be on the receiving end of Sir Cliff’s glazed-eyed mantra. Of course, any right-minded non-celebrity would surely have turned to the third or fourth person and said ‘Didn’t you hear what I just said? No! I’m not writing your bloody name. I’ve just done a show. I’m hungry!’ and then probably written ‘You are a twat’ instead of their name, but you can’t do that when you’re famous. No matter what the provocation or what’s going on in your life, you are expected to just grin and bear it. Still, I guess patience and professionalism are part of what makes Sir Cliff special. That and the fact that he lives with a former priest, which only adds to his mystique.

  Actually I did meet Sir Cliff once more, years later. Walliams and I were guesting on the Steve Wright radio show. He tends to pre-record his interviews so it’s common to bump into other celebs when you’re waiting to do yours. Last time it was Nick Clegg. Another time I spotted Jeremy Vine, but I didn’t speak to him because he once slagged me off on Points of View.

  Anyway, our publicist that day – Jackie Gill, one of my favourite people on the planet – is also Sir Cliff ’s publicist, so we begged her to introduce us to the great man himself. We were there to promote our first ever release, a CD compilation of the best bits from the Little Britain radio shows. I asked Sir Cliff for a personalised autograph for my mum and at the same time gave him one of our CDs. I don’t think he had a clue who we were. He used the CD case to lean on as he signed a photo and then gave both items back to me in return.

  Don’t assume, by the way, that I don’t think much of Sir Cliff, because I think plenty of him. And I’m not just saying that because my mum is going to be reading this book. ‘In The Country’ is one of my shower-time singalong standards, and it’s easy to forget now but if you’ve ever seen the 1961 movie The Young Ones, you’ll know that Sir Cliff Richard was once the sexiest man in Britain.

  I digress.

  In 1989 my school friend Andrew Bloch wrote to Russ Carvell, the cartoonist at a teen pop magazine called Number One. Andrew had subsequently been invited to visit the magazine’s offices for a tour. He asked me and our pal Jason to join him. We met the magazine’s editor, who couldn’t have been friendlier and filled our open satchels with magazines, posters, badges and stickers.

  On our way out we noticed a large gaggle of teenage girls chattering excitedly. Curious, we joined the queue and within minutes found ourselves in a nearby studio, watching Bros perform. I considered myself far too cool to be a fan of theirs, but they were the biggest band in Britain at the time, so I was happy to watch them as they sang ‘I Owe You Nothing’ for a live satellite link-up with Japanese TV.

  After the song ended, one of the managers came out and said the boys would stay and meet the fans on the condition that we didn’t all go crazy. Within seconds, Matt, Luke and Craig’s clothes were being yanked at by a horde of screaming girls and they were ushered away, but not before I had been over to each of them and shaken their hands.

  On the way back to Waterloo station that day I spotted Buster Edwards at his flower stall. He had recently been the subject of an entertaining biopic starring Phil Collins. I got Buster’s autograph, which he signed ‘Why me?’ – ‘Well, because you robbed that train, I suspect’ was what I wanted to say, but that would have been ungracious.

  I loved celebrities. I couldn’t get enough of them. I read about them in the papers incessantly and tuned into every chat show. But why didn’t it stop there? Why did my friend Robert and I spend a whole day handwriting fan letters to anyone who we thought might respond? Bananarama did, Moonlighting singer Al Jarreau didn’t. And why did I feel the need to actually seek out and meet as many celebrities as I could? I knew that these stars and I weren’t actually friends and most likely never would be, but for some reason I needed to feel as if I meant something to them – just as they did to me – even if only for a few seconds. In the short time I had in the presence of the famous people I encountered, while I shook with nerves, I felt both small and large, insignificant and yet elevated. I knew I wasn’t on their level but I also knew – or at least believed – that I was now at least on a level above those who had not met them. And that was enough for me, for the time being.

  Of course I had experienced a kind of fame myself since the age of six – the fame that goes with being the boy in your town with no hair. Unsurprisingly no one asked for my autograph or said they admired my work, but they stared at me and pointed and sniggered as I walked past, which does bear some similarity to what I experience these days.

  Shooting Stars made me a fair bit more famous. Some would smile at the mere sight of me and shout ‘What are the scores, George Dawes?’ Others would squint at me – where did they know me from? Those who did recognise me, and came over to say hello, were usually more interested in the other four people on the show. Were Vic and Bob as mental in real life? What was Mark Lamarr’s problem? And did I have Ulrika’s phone number? It was recognition, but I had no gravitas. No one shook with nerves, like they sometimes do now.

  Little Britain changed everything, in that it was everywhere, and so were we. Well, I was less everywhere than Walliams, who was single and enjoying the nightlife and the premieres, while I tended to stay in with Kevin, but the show was so big for a while, and so widely embraced by the tabloids and broadsheets, that the paparazzi would linger outside my house for hours on end, regardless of whether I was there or not. I remember Walliams once saying, ‘You know you’re famous when they print a photo of you not even doing anything’. He spoke from experience, and that was something we shared. We reached such a level of recognisability that, if I walked into a room, it was reasonably safe to assume at least someone in it would know who I was and, unlike a few years earlier, people now asked me questions about myself and the work, rather than about my co-stars.

  These days it has calmed down a little. Mainly I spend my time in the US, where people once again ask me what it is they’ve seen me in. I am then obliged to list my credits. Each title is invariably followed by a ‘no’ until I get to Bridesmaids, a hugely successful movie in which I occupy perhaps six minutes of screen time. ‘Oh yes! So what’s Rebel Wilson like?’ is the usual response.

  And yet, returning to the UK after a few years in which I no longer invaded your TV set every week, I noticed a change. Little Britain ended in 2008 (or 2006, if you don’t include the American version) and so there are plenty of younger folk – maybe those under the age of eighteen – who aren’t as familiar with me.

  But when I do get approached by people these days, it’s pretty rare that anyone actually wants to talk about my work. What people really want to talk about … is fame. They want to know what it’s like.

  And so, in that spirit, I thought I’d make some observations – in no particular order – about being famous … (well, my level of famous, which I’d say is somewhere midway between Bruno Mars and Maureen from Driving School).

  By the way – please note – this is not intended to be a whinge, a rant or a collection of boasts. It’s just fame, as I have experienced it.

  Here goes …

  THE UNGRATEFUL CELEBRITY’S GUIDE TO BEING FAMOUS

  1. Fame does not suddenly render you deaf or blind. You might think you have the best poker face, but I can see your shock/delight/disdain when you realise I am in the room. And I can hear you when you pass by me in the street and shout ‘He’s a lot shorter than I thought he’d be’ or ‘Oh no, I hate that bloke’.

  2. When I first became famous people sometimes asked for an autograph. Now everyone has a phone with a camera on it. Sometimes I get asked for hundreds of photos a day and yet guess what? You might think you’re being polite by not bothering me but I can see you sneaking that pic of me.

  3. I definitely prefer it if you ask me for a photo as opposed to sneaking one.

  4. No one knows how to work anyone else’s camera phone. Or their own.

  5. No one takes just one photo.

  6. I won’t
think any less of you if you say you want a photo for yourself, but for some reason, I’d say at least three quarters of the people who request a selfie tell me it’s for someone else. A propos, people often ask me to pose for photos with their kids. I ask the kids if they know who I am and they shake their heads. Hence there are now hundreds of photos of me smiling with crying toddlers.

  7. Many of the photos you see of stars arriving at an airport are taken seconds after the person has got off the flight, on their way to immigration. That’s why people often look so tired and also why they sometimes argue with the photographers. While no member of the public is given access to that area (unless they are flying), snappers are. I assume the airport benefits financially from this. Certainly the airlines have staff that call up and tip off the press about who is on a flight. Restaurants, hotels, night clubs – there’s a whole infrastructure of reliable sources who will earn extra revenue by letting journalists know your whereabouts. It’s creepy.

  8. Just because I’m famous doesn’t mean I think I’m wonderful.

  9. I am aware that people will surmise I am either lovely or horrible, based on a few seconds’ evidence. I do try my hardest to be congenial, even when I am not in the best of moods. This makes me feel less guilty when I am having a really bad day and when – as my Doctor Who co-star Pearl Mackie put it so eloquently recently – ‘I just don’t have any chat left’.

  During filming I incurred an injury on the set of Doctor Who that left me in permanent spasm for a few weeks. I found little relief from the pain and barely slept for the first couple of weeks but, schedules being what they are, I still had to leave the flat at 6.30 a.m. each day to go to work, hurtling through caves in second-century Aberdeen. Necking painkillers by the bucketload, I remained as bright and breezy as I could be. There were a lot of actors in these scenes and so, at the end of a long day, after four consecutive sleepless nights, instead of being taken back to my flat by one of our usual staff drivers, I was bundled into a minicab. No problem with that. Many people have to queue for the bus to get home. I’m lucky.