Best of British

If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call? These days, apparently, the answer is no longer Bill Murray and his ghostbusting amigos, but rather BBC 3. Having played midwife to Julia Davis’ nightmarish vision of suburban discontent, Nighty Night, and Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer’s pitch-black odd-yssey through the English countryside, Catterick, the channel has now facilitated the mainstream crossover of Matt Lucas and David Walliams’ breakthrough masterwork, Little Britain.

Like The League Of Gentlemen before it, Little Britain is a mosaic of bizarre and brilliant sketches from the darkest recesses of provincial Britain, which began life on that perennial home to all that is innovative and daring in British comedy, Radio 4.
“We always wanted to do the show on TV, but we knew we would have to prove it could work on radio first,” explains Walliams. “It was also a great way for us to find out which sketches worked and which didn’t. In fact, I would recommend that anyone who wants to do comedy on TV to do radio first. I am pleased with the show as I think it looks great. Steve Bendelack, the director, has done a great job. Also, to get the plug in, there’s a best of the radio series out on CD to buy at the moment if people haven’t heard it.”
“When we were doing Little Britain on the radio, Graham Linehan heard it and championed it, and wanted to direct a TV pilot, but was always clear from the start that he had lots of other commitments and so he wouldn’t be able to do a full series. Steve was the natural choice - we loved his work on The League Of Gentlemen. He’s a brilliant director and also just a very nice guy, always warm and friendly.”
Indeed, the presence of Bendelack behind the camera is not the only element linking Little Britain with The League Of Gentlemen. Mark Gatiss was the script editor on the series, whilst one of the most popular characters, Anne, was borne out of a collaboration between the respective comedy outfits.
“Anne is indeed one of the most popular characters,” acknowledges David. “She may be a mental patient and something of a pin-head lookalike, but that seems to add to her charm. Anyway, she came out of improvisations between me and Matt and Steve and Reece from the League. It was Reece who actually christened her, but we forgot about her for years. I’m delighted everyone seems to enjoy her so much. I don’t really know where it came from as it was done on the spur of the moment. Towards the end of this year we’re bringing out a DVD and the footage of us mucking about with Steve and Reece will be on it.”
To date, Lucas’ illustrious CV has seen him fulfil the role of sidekick to Reeves & Mortimer on Shooting Stars (as George Dawes, the romper-suit clad, nonsense-spouting drummer), whilst he and Walliams first worked together in TV on BBC 2’s acclaimed series of spoof music interviews, Rock Profile. Do the duo feel Profile got the exposure it deserved?
“I think that for a show made on a miniscule budget on a small channel like Play UK, it did pretty well,” considers Matt. “We would have made more but in the end we chose to spend the time working on Little Britain instead. But we’d certainly like to put out a comprehensive DVD of the stuff we’ve done so far.”
Of all the material they’ve produced so far in their career, what are the pair most proud of?
“I think me and Dave did some pretty crazy stuff on stage when we started working together in the mid 90s,” says Matt. “It was quite anarchic stuff; we were young and fearless. We used to perform at the Edinburgh Festival at midnight and we had all sorts of hecklers but we always took them on. There’s a sitcom that we piloted a few years ago called Crazy Jonathan’s which didn’t really work, but I’m still quite proud of some of the writing we did on that, actually.”
“I also enjoyed writing original songs in the last two series of Shooting Stars, and in 2002 I played Leigh Bowery in Boy George’s musical Taboo, and I adored doing that. It was so different to anything else I’d done.”
A notable feature of Little Britain’s costume design is Lucas and Walliams’ enthusiastic embracing of drag - did either gentleman take their costumes home after filming had finished?
“Yes, I do have tons of our costumes taking up much-needed space in my cupboard!” laughs Matt. “But it’s mainly romper suits and Rock Profile stuff. I finger them lovingly and frequently.”
Finally, the one million euro question - who looks better in drag: Matt or David?
“Dave always says I look more convincing as a lady,” responds Lucas, coyly. “He is very conscious of being hirsute. Fact: David Walliams is 68% hair.”
“Matt definitely makes a better woman,” concedes a gracious Walliams. “I am too big and hairy. But I love wearing drag. In fact, I’m dressed as a lady right now.”

Little Britain is currently showing Monday nights at 10pm on Network 2