‘This great tribute brings the entire university system into question’

Matt Lucas has credited the time he spent in Bristol as the springboard to his comedy and acting career.

The Little Britain star returned to the University of Bristol on Thursday to receive an honorary degree, having quit his undergraduate course in 1995.

Taking to the stage at the Wills Memorial Building in red gown and black hat to accept the Doctor of Letters accolade, Lucas said: “This is not the degree I would have got – I was utterly bamboozled by my course.

“This university educates some of the finest minds. But not mine. In fact, receiving this great tribute brings the entire university system into question.”

The 42-year-old also joked that his regular comedy partner David Walliams would be “fuming – he hasn’t got one of these”.

Lucas arrived in Bristol in autumn 1993 to study theatre, television and drama. The course has spawned other household names in the entertainment industry including Simon Pegg, Derren Brown and Walliams.

“At first I lived in what looked like an old DSS boarding house behind the students union, because the room I was supposed to have in Goldney Hall wasn’t ready,” Lucas told Bristol24/7.

He would regularly frequent the nearby 20th Century Flicks to rent videos, go to the ice skating rink, watch gigs at the Bierkeller and films at the Watershed.

In his second year, he moved into a shared house near the Arches on Cheltenham Road, where he drank in the Cat & Wheel and played comedy gigs at the Bristol Flyer.

The house was once burgled while he was inside: he barricaded himself inside and called the police as he watched the burglars leaving with his housemates’ things.

Lucas left university after his second year with the intention of taking a year’s sabbatical. “In the year before I went to uni, I’d started doing stand-up. It went well and I’d been offered an agent –  and, to be honest, I didn’t really give uni a fair chance. At the weekends, in my second year, I was filming Shooting Stars, and that all took off.”

Playing the overgrown baby, drum-playing George Dawes on the cult BBC Two show with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer was the career break he needed, and he didn’t end up returning to university after the summer holidays.

But that isn’t to say that Bristol didn’t have an affect on Matt. “While I was here, I started writing with David Walliams for the first time. He had already graduated from Bristol, and so we had the same frame of reference. We based one of our earliest characters on one of our lecturers.”

Other characters penned by Lucas and Walliams clearly have Bristol connections: Vicky Pollard’s ‘Yeah but no but’ catchphrase has entered the lexicon.

“We came to the Hippodrome when we were touring Little Britain and when I came out dressed as Vicky, she got the biggest cheer of the night,” Lucas remembers. 

“It’s good to be back in Bristol, I have fond memories of being here.”

After snapping a selfie onstage with a fellow doctoral student, he joked that he would now be referring to himself as Dr Lucas, and would be opening a family practice in Fishponds.

He left the stage to rapturous applause from his fellow graduates, parents, university staff and guests.

Joking aside, it’s clear that this honorary doctorate really does mean something to Lucas. “My mum’s got a wall in her house with a photo of my brothers getting their degrees, and two photos of my sister – she’s got two degrees.

“Now, I’m going to have my photo on that wall.”

Read more: Triathlete Chrissie Wellington awarded honorary degree