Little Me

by Matt Lucas

  The gift had been so well received that for his next birthday I somehow managed to talk the BBC into letting me buy a Dalek. This was more expensive, but I thought it would make a great addition to the TARDIS. The Dalek arrived but we couldn’t get it through the doors of the house. There was talk of cutting it vertically in half to get it in, but there was no guarantee that it could be successfully put back together again. Within minutes it went back to Wales, never to be seen again.

  When Kevin left me in 2008, after nearly six years together, he took the TARDIS with him and, to my knowledge, installed it in his new home in Edinburgh. I’m afraid I don’t know where it is now. I heard that it might have been donated by his family after his death to a primary school somewhere.

  Sitting in that read-through of ‘The Husbands of River Song’, I looked around at the sea of friendly faces. I was excited to be working with Alex Kingston, Greg Davies and, of course, Peter Capaldi, who I had met briefly the year before when we did a scene together in the film Paddington.

  As always happens at the beginning of a read-through, a chain started around the room, with each person introducing themselves and stating their job on the show. When it reached me, I surprised even myself by saying ‘I’m Matt Lucas and I play the Doctor’. There was a brief gasp, during which the occupants of the room turned as one to see if Peter was chuckling. He was. Everyone else then burst into laughter.

  I didn’t have all that much to do in the episode and, as the other actors read their parts, I scanned the room. As well as the cast there were lots of production staff. And I started to imagine an alternative reality in which Kevin was alive and well and had got himself a dream job, perhaps in the publicity department or on Doctor Who Magazine. I pictured him, thirty-eight now, less hair, listening to the actors, laughing at the script. We were still not together in this version, but there would be a polite, coy exchange afterwards, maybe an arrangement to have a cuppa while I was in Cardiff and then slowly we would allow ourselves to fall in love all over again. By the end of the read-through I was feeling a profound, almost new sense of loss. It was as I had feared it would be, maybe even worse.

  Since his death I have somehow survived on this earth, partly by carving out new pathways. I avoid the songs, the places, the loves and the life that we shared, because it is often too painful to experience it without him.

  I had always told myself that going on Doctor Who would bring too many feelings to the surface. It turned out I was right. So I was upset, not only because I was feeling his loss acutely, but because it was self-induced. I could and should have said no to the role.

  Don’t get me wrong, by the way. At no point, on no day, in no hour or minute do I ever not think of him. How could I not? We two were one. When Kevin died, half of me died with him. Those who know me will tell you that I have changed immeasurably and irrevocably. I have lost. I am lost. Sometimes I dream about him. He always emerges, having only pretended to have left. My joy at seeing him again is tempered by a sense of betrayal, as I ask him why he went away.

  Then I wake up and realise he is gone. Again.

  After four and a half years together, I proposed to Kevin. We had a civil partnership ceremony. My mother was tentatively pleased, I would say. My brother Howard was opposed to a formal union, saying immediately that he ‘didn’t agree with that sort of thing’. On the day of the ceremony he came along ‘to help with security’ and lingered outside the room, poking his head in, while we said our vows. Afterwards at the reception he stood up and spoke. It wasn’t planned, but he gave the most beautiful speech I have ever heard. He talked about how it had been hard for him to come to terms with my sexuality, hard even for him to be there today, but that he had looked around the room and seen how happy I was – how happy we all were – and realised that he was happy too. He welcomed Kevin to the family, with love.

  He was right. I was so happy. Kevin either was too – and then wasn’t – or already wasn’t. I will never really know. Eighteen months later, he left me for someone else while in rehab, and less than eighteen months after that, he killed himself.

  The facts do not tell the whole story. Nor will I, as I have explained already. But I will say this: Kevin and I never stopped loving each other. We wanted to be together. He suffered from a drug addiction that I knew nothing about for a long, long time, and when I did we fought it the best way we knew how. At first that meant being together and then it meant being apart. I lived in hope that he would find a way to manage his addiction. I dreamed of getting back together with him and he wanted to get back with me. It wasn’t to be. Some people don’t have the armour.

  Yes, this is a chapter about Doctor Who – and it is also a chapter about grief. About walking the tightrope and not looking down.

  When Kevin died, one of our friends contacted me. He too had lost a former partner in similar circumstances. Like ours it was a relationship that had collapsed under the strain of the battle. He told me that he felt guilty until he realised that it was a narcissistic response to think that he could have changed something that even the addict himself could not. I will always be indebted to him for his words of wisdom.

  Everyone’s grief is different. On the night Kevin died, as I lay in bed, reporters repeatedly rang my doorbell. A swarm of paparazzi sat opposite my front door chattering away and stayed for a week. I didn’t leave the house during that time. The press wrote that I was on suicide watch. It wasn’t true. I spent much of the next year battling the papers, getting inaccuracies corrected.

  I’ve no idea how to mourn. I mean, I know what to do for the first couple of weeks, when visitors come to the house and there’s a funeral to think about. After that I have plenty of experience, but have gleaned little wisdom. When my father died, I spent the next three years smoking pot. Once Kevin was gone I refused all drink (and had long since given up cannabis). Instead, I downloaded Grindr and went on an empty sexual rampage that would have put Casanova to shame.

  In the background – almost as a footnote – David and I made Come Fly with Me. I haven’t written much about the show in this book – though I know it’s one of our most popular works – because I barely remember a thing about it. I guess it’s locked away somewhere or perhaps I was too busy drowning to take anything else in. I viewed some clips from it while I was writing this to try and remind myself. It’s like watching someone else.

  Isn’t that strange, not to have a relationship with my own work? I think it’s also because my working relationship with David was breaking down too. I’m not here to settle scores and I don’t have any anger. Actually, in some of my darkest hours, the writing saved me. We laughed and laughed. It was the safest place to be.

  The preparation for and filming of Come Fly with Me, however, had been tough on both of us. Throughout our relationship David and I would often find ourselves at loggerheads during rehearsals and shooting, though each series we did would be enough of a success that – perhaps like childbirth – we would both forget about the pain and begin the whole process again. However, I no longer had the capability to either absorb or deflect anyone else’s anxiety. I just had to get out of the way of it.

  Even when David and I were in sync – which we were for much of the time – I still struggled to remain in London, living and working as I had done before Kevin’s death. It felt dishonest, as if I was pretending that everything was as it had been, when in reality my world had collapsed. I saw Kevin everywhere. All roads led back to the same place.

  So in 2012 I moved to America, to the warmth of the Californian sun. Slowly – very slowly – things started to get a little easier – or at least more manageable – as I set about rebuilding my life.

  I grieve Kevin’s loss every day. It’s a grief that does not go. It consumes me. Eight years on, it’s embedded in me now. Irrevocable. Part of the fabric. And yet on a rare day when I realise that I haven’t actually thought about him for an hour or two, then I feel the guilt. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

  I
would still love to have kids one day – if I was in a settled relationship – but I have convinced myself that the grief has become such an inseparable part of me now that it’ll be in the genes. Even if I never mentioned Kevin again, it would still be passed on.

  I said yes to Doctor Who – yes to the TARDIS – because I realised I hadn’t ever really been away from it. I’m going to mourn and love Kevin all day, every day for the rest of my life. I could be on a plane, a train, a boat. I could be in the most luxurious hotel or watching the greatest band perform. I could be hiking, swimming, playing with the dogs and he’ll still be with me.

  So I might just as well go and chase after some monsters in space, I suppose.

  After the read-through, when we came to film the episode, I told myself to just get on with it, for these few weeks at least. And, in truth, I had a blast.

  Doug Mackinnon, the director, was emphatic that I should play Nardole in a big, silly way. This was, after all, a Christmas Special.

  While I was filming, news reached me that the person who was earmarked to play Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream was no longer able to do it. Shortly after wrapping on Doctor Who, I returned to the same studio in Cardiff and worked with the same crew to tackle Shakespeare once more.

  Of course Shakespeare wrote plays, not films. Usually when you rehearse a play you have a book in your hand for a couple of weeks and lots of time to rehearse. I’ve never known that kind of luxury – or anything approaching it – on a film or TV set. We had to think on our feet, make quick decisions and commit to them.

  My co-stars were a fun bunch. I was chuffed to be acting alongside Bernard Cribbins, whose work I had loved since I was a kid. I was kept very entertained by Javone Prince and Fisayo Akinade teaching Elaine Paige how to be a human beatbox. Richard Wilson and I became close and even went to Vegas together afterwards. The film was warmly received and, to my surprise, I had the best reviews of my career.

  After the Doctor Who Christmas Special was broadcast, I mentioned to the show runner Steven Moffat that I would be happy to return at any point. He called my bluff and ordered me back. I was in early talks to appear in a sitcom pilot in America, but I curtailed them and flew to the UK. Initially it was going to be for three episodes, but then it grew and grew until I was in the whole series and another Christmas Special too.

  The news that I was returning to the show was not greeted with joy in all quarters. Some fans were baffled. Others were fuming. Why was such a minor character being revived? They were also concerned because in ‘The Husbands of River Song’ Nardole had been rather over-the-top. How would this cartoonish performance affect the series?

  Well, the writing changed, for a start. Doctor Who Christmas Specials are always pleasantly ridiculous. The scripts for the series now showed more sides to the character and I reasoned that it might be a smart move to calm down the performance too.

  It was a gruelling shoot, from June 2016 to April 2017. The entrance to Roath Lock studios is as insalubrious as you can imagine. Drive through the gate and you’ll pass a row of skips, groaning with scrap, and a small, rotting boat. Stop at the rusty trailers and then head inside to the chilly studio. There you will find magic happening, albeit on a BBC budget. Lunch is half an hour. You buy your own.

  On camera I like to improvise. Once we had a few takes of the scripted version in the can, I would be allowed to riff a little, offering stuff up, looking at other options. It never offended me if it wasn’t used, though often it was – ‘Some of my best friends are Blueish’ was a line I just threw in.

  I loved working with the Doctor’s companion Bill, aka Pearl Mackie, who gave such an effortlessly natural, contemporary, warm performance, and who was playful and fun away from the cameras too. She worked the longest hours. The prettier you are, the earlier your make-up call. With me, it only took twenty minutes. I’m already fat and bald!

  I much admired Peter’s work, of course. Often, between set-ups, while Pearl and I goofed around, he would take himself away, sitting in the corner at a desk or sometimes even on the TARDIS set, revising the numerous lengthy speeches that the Doctor had to deliver. On a day when he had fewer lines, he could clown around like the rest of us. Saving the world is hard work. You need a break sometimes.

  In the gaps in filming I did my best to be insufferably jolly. Whenever runners Lauren, Rhun or Chris asked me if I needed anything, I’d regularly demand something impossible, or at the very least, pointless.

  ‘Four barrels of unpasteurised rice milk, please.’

  ‘Hilary Swank’s autobiography, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Eleven bottles of Dettol and a peanut. Now!’

  The crew were the best I’ve ever worked with, and the nicest. It’s a long shoot and we became like a family. Doctor Who punches above its weight. The flashy American shows it competes with shoot in swanky studios with money to burn – but no challenge was too great for us. On those freezing, soaking outdoor night shoots we drank watery tea, swapped jokes, wolfed down soggy sandwiches and then got on with the business of making the best sci-fi show on the box.

  Even the fans – for the most part – came round to what I was doing and enjoyed the lightness Nardole brought to the dark world of the show. One or two bombarded me with abuse on Twitter (while still following me, of course), but on the whole I was heartened by the response.

  I’d love to return as Nardole one day and riff with the next Doctor. That orange duffel coat came to fit me rather well in the end, keeping me warm on those chilly Cardiff days. In the meantime I imagine he’s triumphed over those Mondasian Cybermen, found his way back to Darillium for a bit, and has his feet up somewhere, munching on a Jaffa Cake and playing with a toy elephant.

  Les Mis at the Queens Theatre, London, 2011

  U – Upstage

  Well, we’ve got a TARDIS so we might as well use it, to travel back in time again. It’s the summer of 1988. The fourteen-year-old me is at that school drama noticeboard again, this time reading about auditions for a role in a West End play, no less.

  The piece in question was Catherine Cookson’s The Fifteen Streets – a soapy potboiler, based on a book by Britain’s then bestselling author. Set amidst the poverty of the dockyard slums of Tyneside at the turn of the century, the play revolved around two fighting brothers and their heartbroken mother. It had toured the UK and somehow found its way to London’s Playhouse Theatre. Tickets were still available at all prices.

  In those days, if you were between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, you could only work as an actor for eighty days a year. The children in the cast had worked nearly all of their eligible days so it was time to recast.

  Open auditions took place on a scorching Saturday morning at Wimbledon Theatre, on the stage, behind the curtain. Queuing outside beforehand, I sized up the others and exchanged small talk, making sure to let everyone know that they were up against a veteran of the theatre, thanks to my barnstorming performance as Accrington Stanley the previous year.

  We were brought in in small groups and were required to shout and chant in Geordie accents. I had seen Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and did my best Jimmy Nail impression, which was pitiful, I’m sure, but, at fourteen years old, my energy and enthusiasm somehow earned me a recall later that afternoon.

  I killed time for a few hours and then got the bus back to the theatre, shaking with nerves. On the way my heart sank as I felt a familiar sensation. Throughout that summer, without any warning, I had succumbed to sudden, unexplained gushing nosebleeds. Sure enough it wasn’t long before my hilarious ‘Miami Mice’ T-shirt (Mickey as Don Johnson) was streaked with blood. I didn’t have time to get myself clean so I must have looked a sight at the second audition, but somehow I was offered a part in the play as a ‘children’s extra’.

  Fame and riches lay in wait, I told myself jubilantly. Then came the reveal that we were not going to get paid as such because we were not Equity card-holders and didn’t have solo lines, but that we would receive thirty pounds
for expenses per week each. There were some grumbles, but I didn’t care. Thirty pounds a week was better than nothing, especially as my mum said I could keep it all for myself.

  It was agreed with my parents that one of them would collect me from the show every night, but that I would make my own way to the theatre each day. I was used to walking down the road to get the school coach, but this was a new experience. I would head to Stanmore station, get the Tube all the way to Charing Cross, and then walk down Villiers Street to the Playhouse Theatre.

  I found it scary and exciting to be out on my own. It had been drummed into me not to talk to strangers, but sometimes people would just begin a conversation. I was on the Tube when one young guy noticed my Arsenal scarf and chatted to me about football. After half an hour he suddenly complained that there were a lot of Jews around at football matches these days and asked if I was a Jew. I shook my head. I think he could tell that I was lying and there was a pause and then he changed the subject.

  There were maybe eight boys and two girls joining the cast of the play. In rehearsals it became clear that the boys were cut from two different types of cloth – middle-class namby-pamby swots like me and the rough, fearless Cockney kids, who, despite having voluntarily auditioned like the rest of us, seemed to think acting was for cissies. The agenda for them was to ridicule the poor director during rehearsals and muck about as much as possible.

  We quickly learned our parts, which consisted of walking on and off a lot, and delivering simple playground chants that had been written especially for the piece, like …

  John O’Brien kissed mad Nancy

  Gave her money, tickled her fancy.

  We know Nancy is quite mad

  But John O’Brien is the dad.

  We then joined the existing cast for more rehearsals. I was thrilled to be working with professional actors. I scoured the theatre programme and familiarised myself with the cast and their credits. One of the actors, Ian Tucker, had been the original Gavroche in Les Misérables and it was his voice you could hear on the cast album. Another, Patrick Holt, then seventy-six, had been a leading man in lots of Rank pictures in the fifties and kindly indulged me with stories about his career. I’m sure I was a nuisance, spending as much time with the adults as possible when I ought to have been sat quietly in my dressing room, but I knew I wanted a career as an actor and I couldn’t miss the chance to learn as much about the profession as possible.