As a precocious teenager, touring the comedy clubs, I was - how shall I put it - extremely "blue". Effing and blinding relentlessly, I notoriously and unapologetically bludgeoned my audiences into weary appreciation. Where there was a rude word, I used it. Where there wasn't, I invented it. In fact, I became known amongst my peers as "the c**t comedian" (although, in retrospect, I'm forced to concede that this may not have had anything to do with the language I used).
After trawling the circuit on my own for a couple of years, I joined forces with a strange, brilliant man called David Walliams and we were scarily blue together. We would defend our offensive brand of comedy to the hilt, gleefully mocking those so uptight as to recoil in horror at the merest hint of a rude word. Of course, our use of bad language was utterly fucking gratuitous, but it was liberating in the extreme. And fun . But when we worked on TV we were frequently outraged by reams of notes from beleaguered producers demanding a plethora of re-writes. I, in particular, would moan and groan vociferously at the idea of having to change "what works".
However, some years on, we've now grown out of being relentlessly blue. We try to write jokes instead. Which is why we were shocked and appalled last week, whilst scripting a forthcoming animation programme on Channel Four called Sick And Twisted, by the unremitting insistence of the producer that we come up with material that was "sicker and more twisted". When, at the end of a long day, we were asked to submit a stronger insult than "nana", we drily and rather half-heartedly suggested the C word. To our astonishment this proposal was greeted with wild enthusiasm, though personally I am disgusted by the word's inclusion in the programme and shall be writing a strong letter to my MP.
Matt Lucas appears on Little Britain (Radio 4, 11pm, tonight).
