Matt Lucas Introduction
Matthew Richard Lucas , commonly known as Matt Lucas, is a British comedian and screenwriter who is most popularly known for his work with David Walliams in the hit TV comedy show Little Britain and also the spoof interview show Rock Profile. He has since gone on to play the part of Chancellor Donald David Dongalor in the BBC comedy show Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire and currently he is working on another comedy series with long term writing partner David Walliams called "Come fly with me".
Matt Lucas was born in Paddington, London to a Jewish family made up of his mother, Diana and his father John who ran a chauffeuring business. When he grew up he was a regular member of the Edgware and District Reform Synagogue and despite moving away for his acting career he still has a regular link with this community. Since the age of 6 he has had Alopecia, which is a disorder in which the sufferer looses all the hair from their body and as a result he has been bald ever since. In interviews Matt Lucas has given many different reasons for the cause of this, one of them being a delayed reaction to a car accident he was in when he was four years old. When he was young he attended the Haberdashers' Aske's Boy's School where other famous comedy actors such as David Baddiel and Sacha Baron Cohen also attended. Then, between the years of 1993 and 1995 he studied drama at Bristol university and began his career in the acting world.
He has always been very focused on comedy acting and he was associated with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer from 1995 onwards when he did several sketches in the TV Show The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer and he later went on to collaborate with them on a show called Shooting Stars in which he played the part of George Dawes, a huge baby who would sit playing a drum kit and hurling out insults and gags before completely the script. Some of the other parts he played, however, we as adults and he regularly parodied adult stars in the TV Show such as Elton John with his fabulous costumes. Later he met up with David Walliams who would soon become his main collaborator and they worked together on the show Rock Profiles which spoofed famous musicians and rock stars. The success of this show fuelled their desire to create the social spoof show Little Britain and since then this show has become his most famous venture with spin off such as Little Britain USA and a Live Tour as well as a wide range of merchandise and fancy dress costumes. Matt Lucas plays four main characters in Little Britain, which was originally a radio show, which are Andy Pipkin, the apparently disabled man with the catch phrase "want that one...don't like it", the Bristol Chav Vicky Pollard with the often repeated catchphrase "yeah but no but yeah but no but yeah" and the "only gay in the village" Daffyd Thomas as well as the rude slimming club owner Marjorie Dawes. Little Britain ran from 2003 to 2006 for 25 episodes with a Christmas special as well, and the following series Little Britain USA ran for just six episodes in 2008 on HBO. Little Britain USA was supposed to have a second season to be aired in 2009 but plans for this were scrapped, however, plans for some specials episodes and one-off episodes are still in the pipe line with HBO working along side Matt Lucas and David Walliams.
He has also done a lot of work with children's TV Shows including a series about King Arthur and Merlin called "King Arthur's Disasters" which was a regular slot on CBBC. He has also played Mr Toad in a modern remake of Wind in the Willows and played the dual role of Tweedledee and Tweedledum in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and he's set to voice a character in the up and coming animation film Gnomeo and Juliet. He is also popular for being part of the "I'm gonna be (500 miles)" music video with Peter Gay playing his Little Britain character Andy. During the first 48 hours that this song was available on itunes it had become number 3 in the UK top 40 before eventually taking the number 1 spot for three weeks and selling over 400,000 copies. He was also one of the celebrities who took part in the E4 Big Brother Celebrity Hijack and is currently in the process of writing a movie for Dreamworks with David Walliams.
His personal life is documented in his biography "Inside Little Britain" and also in an unofficial biography by John Blake. However, his life made the headlines in 2009 when his ex civil partner Kevin McGee committed suicide. The pair had married in 2006 but Matt Lucas had broken the partnership in 2008 on grounds of unreasonable behaviour on Kevin McGee's part. Kevin McGee left a suicide note on his Facebook page and as a result of the death Matt Lucas pulled out of the stage show "Prick up your ears" that he had been staring in where his part was taken over by Con O'Neill. In May 2007 he was listed on the UK's 100 most influential Gays and Lesbians and was 8th place in the list alongside influential people from the fields of academia, science, theatre, film, politics and business. This list was compiled by The Daily Mail and The independent.