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Q: Where did the idea for the show come from?
Matt: Well the show started out actually on radio, which in
Britain is how a lot of comedy shows come out. On radio you're under a lot more pressure to come up with a
concept than you are on television. So you can't just do a sketch, you have to come up with a big idea. So
that's the way we did that...
Also, I mean, me and David have been working together a long time. This is our
tenth year this year. In October we have been working together for ten years and we've never really just
wanted to be called Matt and Danny, we [have] always been more interested in the characters rather than just
being ourselves.
Q: Where did you and David meet?
Matt: We met in 1990. David was I think 19 and I was 16 and we
were in something called the National Youth Theater, which is something that happens in the summer holidays,
and is where kids who are really keen on theater get together and, ya know, they become members of this youth
theater. We met briefly there and then the following year we found out that we were doing a show together
which was a production of The Tempest.
And then we stayed friendly but we didn't actually work together for about another
three years. Instead we both sort of had solo careers, as it were, on the comedy circuit in London. And then
eventually it just seemed the most natural thing to start working together because we would talk and talk, and
more and more we sort of shared the same ambitions really. And we made each other laugh so it felt very natural
to be a double act.
Q: What has the reaction been to the show in the UK?
Matt: Well, I think the reaction for us has been really
overwhelming because we've just made one TV series of Little Britain, and usually it takes a few series before
a show enters the culture. But we've found that our lives are beginning to change, that the press, for instance,
has taken an interest in us and our lives.
The series is transferring from BBC2 to BBC1 [for] the second series, which is
something that usually doesn't happen at all... So, really we've been quite overwhelmed by the response and so
we're flattered.
Q: Sketch shows seem really popular in the UK, do you have any theories
to why that is?
Matt: I think maybe we have short attention spans...I mean comedy is
something that's very personal and people have strong opinions about [it]. People will love something very much
or hate something very much. But the great thing about a sketch show is that if something comes along that you
don't like, something else will come along in a minute that hopefully you might like that.
Q: Where do you get the inspirations for the characters? Are they people
you've met or known or are they conglomerations of people?
Matt: Yeah, you know, they are everything. Some are based on
people we know. Some I guess are based on facets of ourselves. Some are just complete inventions. Some are
more satirical. Some are completely absurd. I mean what we try to do is make it as eclectic as possible so
the sources are varied.
Q: Do you have a favorite character?
Matt: I have a favorite [pair] of characters and they are called
Lou and Andy. They are a pair of characters that David and I play together. I play a guy in a wheel chair and
David plays my care-taker. But it's blatantly clear to everybody except David's character, Lou, that I can
actually walk and I am completely physically able. I really enjoy filming those because I sit in a wheelchair
eating boxes of potato chips and candy.
Q: How do you think Americans will relate to the people of Little Britain?
Matt: I don't feel that they are too idiosyncratic of just Britain... We
have a character called Vicki who's a 14 year-old delinquent school girl. In America you would call her
"trailer trash." She might have an accent from the west country of southern England, but people will
hopefully be able to see that character and recognize her equivalent in America.
I was hoping that the appeal of the show would stretch beyond the anglophile and
comedy-obsessed. Usually the comedy that David and I have been doing has been for an audience about our age.
This show seems to be watched by people of all ages. We always said if we wanted to do a sketch show, we wanted
to do broad appeal, with a laughter track, with a great sense of color about it. And I'm hoping that this show
will appeal to people in other countries as well.
Q: Is Britain really that strange?
Matt: It is far stranger than you could ever make it!
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