There were elements of the life story of comedy actor Matt Lucas in the 2006 publication “Inside Little Britain” written by Boyd Hilton with input from Lucas and then comedy partner David Walliams. At this point they were probably the top comedy duo around and I really loved this book placing it in the Top 5 of my best books of 2006.

A lot has happened in the 11 years between then and this, particularly for Walliams who has become a phenomenally successful and extremely wealthy children’s author publishing his own autobiography “Camp David” (which I haven’t read) in 2012. Lucas’ work is a less showy affair than either of these two aforementioned books and is an honest, at times raw account in which the author’s voice comes across so clearly it’s like having an audiobook in your head.

Lucas has eschewed the chronological approach to go alphabetically writing sections such as E is for eating, G is for Gay, J is for Jewish which gives him a chance to focus in on certain areas and leave others undeveloped. He has a right to do this, one of the shorter sections K is for Kevin focuses on his ex-civil partner who died 18 months after their split. Lucas has already told us at the outset that he will largely leave this subject alone because of the pain it causes him but because it has had such a significant effect on his life he can’t help but touch on it, especially in T is for Tardis where work on “Dr Who” became overwhelmed with Kevin’s (a huge Dr Who fan) passing. The K is for Kevin section is largely taken up with colour photos of the man who was Lucas’ love of his life and this provides a fitting, touching and thorough tribute.

There is no doubt that this event has influenced Lucas’ life and work since. He has moved to the US to escape memories and rebuild his life in a country where he is less well known. If this sounds depressing it’s not, he handles this appropriately and sensitively but much of the rest is written with his undeniable enthusiasm and vivacity. (There’s even a song with music and lyrics at the mid-way point).

The structure allows us to piece together the events in Lucas’ life and go off with him at tangents. This must be the first autobiography to rate the chocolates in a box of Celebrations in eating order (I’d get round to polishing off those Bountys for you eventually, Matt, but you’d have to do the Galaxy Caramels for me and we’d fight over the Malteser one.) It made for an unpredictable, entertaining read. There’s none of the gloss many autobiographies have which will the reader to like the subject, Lucas is happy to put in things which will no doubt rub us up the wrong way. He has a section I is for Idiot to explain some of his behaviour and often cross-references us back to this section of the text.

“Little Britain” and “Come Fly With Me”, the works most associated with Lucas and Walliams were very much of their time and he admits some elements have not dated that well and he has been accused of racism, trans and homophobia because of some characterisations and the way these were interpreted by viewers and he acknowledges that he would do things differently today. I don’t think he needs to beat himself up over this, the same could be said for his contemporary comedy heroes The League Of Gentlemen and Vic and Bob, who were central to Lucas’ early professional career but at the time we really laughed and we’d also laugh a lot today. In fact, Matt had me if not laughing then smiling throughout from the warmth within this book as well as misting up my eyes on quite a few occasions.

Little Me was published by Canongate in 2017. I read the 2018 paperback edition.