Matt Lucas has said he is not quitting acting and TV work, but admits he turns down more offers than he accepts these days. The 52-year-old has barely been on TV screens in the last couple of years, aside from a brief cameo on The Masked Singer. He returns to the small screen in the new series of Taskmaster, which is surprising since he admits he has never watched the show before.
Why Matt said yes to Taskmaster
Former Little Britain star Matt says: “I’m not retiring, but I started when I was 18 and I’m 52 now, and it’s been great. So when something new comes along, I think: are the people nice? Will there be a sandwich involved? At this point in my career, when something comes my way, I mostly think: are the people nice? Is it something a bit challenging? Because I’ve been very lucky in my career and there aren’t many things left that I feel I absolutely have to do.”
Looking at other possible shows he has likely turned down over the years, he adds: “I could never imagine myself doing Big Brother or I’m a Celebrity or something like that, because that feels a bit stressful to me. But I was told that with Taskmaster you’ll have fun and you’ll do things you haven’t done before — and that’s exactly what appealed to me. When something comes my way now, I just think: is it going to be enjoyable? Is it going to challenge me? Even with Les Misérables, there are always different people playing my wife, different dynamics, different cities, different theatres, different audiences, different versions of the show — so there’s always something to keep it alive.”
Facing the challenges
Asked for the reason he said ‘yes’ to Taskmaster, which will see him taking on games and challenges in odd and comedic situations, Matt seems up for the challenge. The show is fronted by Greg Davies and Alex Horne, who Matt knows from previous projects, and this seemed to be enough to get him on board.
Matt says: “I hadn’t seen the show, no. And I’m not going to be watching my episodes. Too much shame and embarrassment. But it’s good to come out of my comfort zone and be challenged. It’s almost like being back at school, except you also have to surrender control. I found it pretty difficult, actually. They’re quite overstimulating and overwhelming, and there are a lot of distractions, so it’s not always easy to know where to focus when you have a task. I have this feeling of remorse after almost every task, where I think, “Ah, I should have done it… oh, I should have done that.” Sometimes a task comes on in the studio and you think, “What was this one again?” because you did so many and not all of them are used, and it was a while ago. The nice thing about the show is that no two people ever make the same gag — everyone responds differently.”
Co-stars and career
Alongside Matt on the Channel 4 show in the lineup is Chloe Petts, Isy Suttie, Nina Conti and Richard Ayoade. In terms of how he got on, Taskmaster bosses are keen to keep the results a secret, but Matt adds: “I’ve learned that I’m even more of an idiot than I thought.”
But co-star Isy Suttie was full of praise for Matt and says: “Matt’s a really lovely, quirky character. He does different voices, as you might expect from him: the other day he did an old-fashioned train announcer which was delightful. But a lot of the time he’s just himself and he’s lovely.”
And the Taskmaster himself Greg recalls how football fan Matt was a total professional despite tricky filming circumstances. “Arsenal were about to win the league while we were recording a studio show. It was actually quite sweet because Matt was doing his job on set, but it was hell for him that that was happening, so every time we broke off for the adverts, he would sprint off stage and try and find out what the Arsenal score was. He has quite an odd career. The day after we finished, he immediately flew to join the cast of Les Misérables to go on tour around the world, which is a whole different drama. He said he really loved doing this because there was no script and it was mad, but he also loved going to that world of the theatre. And I really liked that every now and again he would just jump into a character. Obviously I’ve been watching Matt Lucas doing characters since way before I started comedy, so I’m always a little bit starstruck when those character voices come out.”
Matt has enjoyed huge success in his career, rising to fame in the Nineties dressed in an adult romper suit as the character George Dawes on BBC gameshow Shooting Stars with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. Later his most successful comedy work would be alongside David Walliams in Little Britain, which was watched by millions and saw them also tour the show. But in 2020 he and Walliams apologised for the portrayal of some characters including using blackface for some. “David and I have both spoken publicly in recent years of our regret that we played characters of other races. Once again we want to make it clear that it was wrong and we are very sorry,” Lucas said in Twitter in 2020. He reinvented himself in some ways over the last decade with performances on stage in musicals and also was a hit as a Great British Bake Off host for three years.
OBE and family
Throughout his career he has spoken with fondness of his mother Diana and their close relationship, and he even involved her in Taskmaster by making her a ‘prize’ in one of the episodes, much to her confusion. A happier event for her was without doubt when Matt received his OBE earlier this year after being in the New Year Honours. Looking back Matt says: “It was overwhelming, actually. My mum was happy, though. I took my mother, my brother, my stepfather and my stepmother. I felt very honoured. There were lots of other people there too, and I don’t know what they were all receiving honours for, but it was a lovely day. My mum has had to sit through a lot of rather grotty comedy over the years, so for her to be able to watch her son have an investiture is sort of every mummy’s dream — a bit of payback, hopefully.”
Matt is a big Arsenal fan and even managed some football talk when picking up his honour from Prince William. He adds: “Apparently it’s not protocol to go into too much detail about what you discuss, but I will confirm that I brought up football. He’s an Aston Villa fan and they were playing in a big final that night too, so I asked whether he was going to the match and he said yes. I won’t go into any more detail than that. I had actually met him once before, in November, because I was doing a segment from Les Misérables in the Royal Variety Performance. I had very bad teeth at the time, so I was quite happy this time that I didn’t have very bad teeth.”
The new series of Taskmaster starts on Channel 4 on Thursday September 3 at 9pm and will be on the Taskmaster YouTube Channel across the rest of the world.
