Hello and this is the show that explores the life experiences that make us who we are.

Today I'm chatting to Matt Lucas. I had five years at a hard secondary school that I found a very

difficult environment and I think that and not having hair my divorced, my dad went to prison, and I just saw acting as a way of not being me and being someone and something else.

And in terms of sort of developing a sense of humor and

developing some kind of vocal dexterity in terms of a sharpness was a necessity to

counteract the things that people said to me.

Matt is perhaps best known for being a comedian, an actor and a presenter,

but recently his creativity has been channeled into writing and into music.

He's written a children's book called The Boy Who Slept Through Christmas.

But it's basically a musical too.

Matt's written 20 original songs that make up part of the story and you can scan

QR codes in the book to listen to them as you read. It's a really cool concept.

Anyway, I've found this chat with him so life-affirming because he's such brilliant proof that we can

always discover new skills and passions later in life. There's always more to learn about ourselves. This conversation was also such a lovely

opportunity to understand the experiences that have shaped Matt's career. We talk about the prison

system, about what work we still need to do to support LGBT-plus people,

and about grief too. I hope there's lots in here to get your brain really worrying.

Okay, we'll get to Matt in just a moment, but first I really want to tell you about a very special

one-off event to celebrate the release of my new book Little Things. I'll be on stage at

Union Chapel on the 30th of January sharing my everyday mental health toolkit to

help you counteract stress by making small positive

changes. You can come and learn some really lovely simple habits and we can all get some brilliant

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