For all the cred that goes along with a cult following, most creators still wouldn't want their success to stop there. When Matt Lucas and David Walliams created their sketch-comedy show Little Britain for BBC's Radio 4 in 2001, they weren't writing for a cult audience. They weren't writing with fame in mind, either, but they always wanted the show to be a hit. And it is, at least in their native UK, where they just finished a massively popular live touring version of the show. Across the pond, Little Britain airs on BBC America and maintains a small but fervent fandom, though that could be expanding.
Appealing both to sketch-comedy snobs who worship Mr. Show and to Saturday Night Live fans who still quote Rob Schneider's copy guy, Little Britain unites audiences through its absurdist humor (with rampant Kids In The Hall-style cross-dressing) and catchphrase-friendly characters. Among them: Vicky Pollard, a chronically pregnant delinquent; Daffyd, an ostensibly gay man in a small village; Andy, who pretends to be disabled, and his caretaker Lou; Sebastian, a gay man who has a crush on his boss, the prime minister; and many more. Walliams and Lucas play them all, in addition to writing every episode. Their show just finished its third season, or "series" in Brit-speak. Just before Little Britain's second season was released on DVD, the pair talked to The A.V. Club about thriving outside The Office's shadow, their catchphrases, and the price of fat suits.
The A.V. Club: The show began on radio before it went to TV, which is an antiquated notion in the U.S. Is it more common in the UK?
Matt Lucas: Yeah, it's an inexpensive way of doing the shows. Radio 4 makes loads of comedy.
David Walliams: It doesn't happen with everything. I think the BBC liked that we had been on radio before. We got moved between channels; we were on the radio before, then we were on BBC 3, then BBC 2, then BBC 1. I think there's something persuasive when the TV executives can hear a radio audience laughing. It helped make the decision to commission us, really.
ML: It enabled us to develop the comic sensibilities of the show. Although they did still change when we went to TV.
DW: Writing for radio really focuses the mind, because you can't rely on thinking "Oh, just pull a funny face at the end of this sketch." You've got to try to work on the words. It was really, really great for us. Things like doing the Tom Baker voiceover, which you kind of need on radio to figure out where you are. If we were just doing it on TV, we probably wouldn't have had that, because it wouldn't be necessary. But we tried to make it as funny as possible, and it became another part of the show.
AVC: The show came up in the shadow of The Office's success, but you said you wanted to go the other way. Why were you thinking along those lines?
ML: The Office is so extraordinary, we could do nothing but pale imitations. So why try?
DW: We knew that wasn't quite for us in the same way. The naturalistic performances—it wasn't quite how we were funny. We thought, "Oh, this can really stick, but we're going to go the other way and go back to more traditional type of humor, and dress up and have wigs and funny costumes."
AVC: Do you feel a strong urge to be successful in the U.S.?
DW: Well, it feels like a bonus. When we sat down to write Little Britain, we were never thinking, "Hmm, I wonder if this television show will play in America." But it feels great that it does play in America, and people buy the DVD in America. It would be hard to think, "Right, okay, we have to change this for an American audience," or anything like that—it would sort of be the wrong way. We've just got to do what we think is funny. I think comedy is a bit more international than people credit. We happily watch lots of American shows and American comedy films. If we did a list of the top 10 comedy films in Britain, there's no sense that it would probably be different than yours.
ML: We don't need a guidebook to understand Friends, you know what I mean? We get it.
DW: American culture is kind of an international culture, isn't it? British culture is a bit more unique. I think funny things are sort of funny around the world, really.
ML: A girl who's a delinquent should be funny in any country. And the guy falling in love with his best friend's grandmother is not an exclusively British thing by any means.
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