Rob Brydon: 'I was so bad at stand up comedy the crowd didn't bother to heckle' - WalesOnline

COMEDIAN Rob Brydon has lifted the lid on his early struggles to hit the big time.

Brydon has revealed he was once thousands of pounds in debt, found scars from his childhood acne were preventing him getting TV jobs and was so bad as a stand up comic crowds "did not even bother to heckle".

And the 46-year-old star who grew up in Baglan, Port Talbot and later in Porthcawl has spoken for the first time about his family's little-known heartache – the death of his baby brother Jeremy.

In his autobiography Small Man in a Book, Brydon, who has another younger brother, Pete Jones, said Jeremy was born in 1971 but lived only a few months.

He died of Sudden Infant Death syndrome.

Brydon, who was six at the time, said: "I'm afraid I have no memories at all of Jeremy.

"The only image I can conjure up when I think of him is of my mother sitting on the settee in Woodside (the family home in Baglan) crying on the settee.

"I can't image how this affected by my parents. It is unbearable to try."

Brydon, who took his stage name from his maternal grandfather Robert Brydon, a canadian who settled in Wales after the Second World War, was brought up by his car salesman father Howard and teacher mother Joy.

He was born in a maternity home in Swansea in 1965, the midwife "passing out" after delivering him as it was her first delivery after a long period of leave.

The delivery doctor announced his arrival into the world with: "It's a boy – and it works".

Brydon said: "The last part was a reference to the fact I had urinated on him in a most enthusiastic fashion."

He was educated at Dumbarton House Private School in Swansea where one of his fellow pupils was Catherine Zeta-Jones.

His mother was concerned about perceived pollution from the former BP chemical plant in Port Talbot and when his father's business was thriving the family moved to Porthcawl, particularly as Brydon's brother Pete suffered childhood asthma.

And he later attended Porthcawl Comprehensive where he met Ruth Jones – who would later co-write and star with him in Barry-based Gavin and Stacey.

He said of her: "She was two years younger than me but shared my love of acting.

"We became friends through rehearsals (at Porthcawl Comprehensive) although our respective casting meant we never really acted together.

"In Guys and Dolls she stole the show as Miss Adelaide and in Carousel she an excellent Carrie Pipperidge.

"She was never on my pining list, more like brother and sister but it didn't stop my brother insinuating something was going on.

"Pete used to love raising his eyebrows at the mere mention of her name."

After enrolling at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Brydon took a number of jobs which saw him as a continuity announcer, presenter and once as a stand-in host for the day time quiz show Bank Raid.

Despite his ability to get work, he once found himself with a £4,000 overdraft.

And to make matters worse he upset his bank manager during one interview.

The manager informed the young Brydon he had recently had a Sky dish installed with Brydon replying, in an attempt to get on friendlier terms "Ooh you dirty dog".

Brydon said: "His face turned to thunder and said: "My daughter is learning the language!"

Brydon met his first wife Martina, with who he would have three children, in Cardiff and later moved to London where she was working when he got a job on a home shopping channel.

They married in 1992 and he now has two children from his second marriage to former South Bank Show director Claire Holland.

He started to find TV and radio commercial voice over work but some casting directors refused to employ him in front of the camera because of his childhood acne.

It had been cured when he eventually went to a dermatologist with the use of Vitamin A tablets.

When in London, Brydon also tentatively began doing stand up comedy work but at one pub, The Bearcat, he found the audience did not even bother to heckle him.

He said: "With a heckle, at least you have something to work with, something to bounce off."

Brydon said: "When interviewing me, journalists often bring up my time as the voice of the television commercial for Toilet Duck as representing a low point for me, but it's really not the case.

"It was an ad that ran and ran for a long time and was very lucrative indeed.

"No, the low point was my booking, as an actor, for a corporate event in Glasgow centred on thrush.

"The condition, not the bird – fungal, rather than feathered.

"I remember little of the event, beyond the sense that my career was a boggy marsh and I'd arrived without wellies.

"But the slogan of the night has stayed with me all these years. Treat the cause, not the itch."

He added: "A perk with this kind of work was that I'd sometimes find myself working with well-known actors, the celebrities of the day.

"I acted alongside Martin Clunes, Neil Morrissey and Caroline Quentin (huge at the time with Men Behaving Badly), with comedy stars like John Thomson and Graham Fellows, and once with Sir Donald Sinden when I played Noddy to his Big Ears."

Brydon honed his writing and acting skills in an early Radio Five radio show Rave, with Radio Wales' Alan Thompson.

He also got a movie part as a villager in First Knight starring Sir Sean Connery but had to leave when Martina was due to give birth.

And he got a speaking role as a traffic warden in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

His breakthrough came when he joined up with old friend, Bath-born comedy writer and actress Julia Davis and between them they penned the successful TV series Human Remains, a black comedy about a series of extremely unhappy couples.

Then came Marion & Geoff, a series of bittersweet TV monologues made by Steve Coogan's production company, in which Rob played a relentlessly enthusiastic cab driver, Keith Barrett, whose wife had left him, taking the children.

It won Brydon the Best Newcomer award in the Comedy Awards and made his name.

He said: "The first year of a new millennium was coming to an end.

"And so, too, it seemed was my era of terrible job and after terrible job.

"Everything had changed, I felt now as though I was on a wave and all I had to do was ride it.

"After becoming used to a life of rejection letters, returned VHS cassettes thudding onto the doormat and a phone unable to stretch beyond a secretary I was suddenly receiving invitations to events here, there and everywhere."

Small Man in a Book, published by Michael Joseph, cost £20 and is available from today.

13 Oct, 2011

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