Fast Show's Simon Day on drug addiction, borstal and chance encounter that led to stardom

Fast Show fans, assemble. The quick-fire comedy sketch show which became a nineties staple will see its star cast reuniting this year for a nationwide tour.

Taking centre stage will be Simon Day - creator of beloved characters like Competitive Dad, Tommy Cockles and eco warrior Dave Angel - who is now 62. Even the likes of Johnny Depp - who cameoed on the show, as well as Amy Winehouse - will be pleased to hear the news, given that the star said the show had one of his favourite characters (any guesses for who?).

Even more of a surprise is Simon’s frank confession that, at the height of his fame, he was hooked on crack - a shock to fans, but something of an unfortunate progression to Simon from his first addiction - to fruit machines - during his teens.

“It seems like it’s not a real addiction, but it’s exactly the same,” he says. “I was obsessed with fruities, I would play them all the time. If I wasn’t playing them I’d watch people play them, I’d steal money to play them.”

Now a dad himself to two teenagers, Lloyd and Evie, fortunately Simon can’t imagine them growing up the way he did.

When he was a teenager, his parents divorced and, having left school with no qualifications - no thanks to his undiagnosed ADHD and chronic dyslexia - Simon soon became hooked on playing the fruit machines down the pub.

Petty theft followed, which spiralled into shoplifting on demand, and Simon was caught twice and put behind bars.

“I remember the judge went, ‘I’m going to give you a chance: borstal training (reformatory system designed for young people aged 16 and 21), six months to two years,’” he says. “I just can’t imagine my little boy going through that level of emotional trauma.”

After three months in borstal, young Simon was released and left to work a series of short-lived minimum wage jobs that he would subsequently get fired from.

Comedy was something of a life-saver. A chance encounter with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer while working at the fireplace shop under their office led to him joining them on tour, where he got to hone his Tommy Cockles character.

“I think you have to be quite mad to want to do stand-up comedy,” he reflects. “You’re essentially stepping onto a stage and saying, ‘love me’, aren’t you? The way I did it, stand-up is like I need something more. It’s a bit like an external validation thing. It was a way of earning money, too. I was potless: I had no money, no skills, I’m dyslexic. I’ve got chronic ADHD, so I had very little chance of working in an office or anywhere. In those days they’d just say, ‘you’re an idiot’.”

In 1994, Simon got the call to say he’d been cast in new BBC2 sketch show The Fast Show. Joining him were Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Arabella Weir, the late Caroline Aherne, Mark Williams and John Thomson. The character work appealed immensely to Simon, who had spent his twenties people-watching during his spells of gainful employment.

“I’d had a whole life and I’d done a whole load of ‘McJobs’, as they call them now,” he explains. “People don’t realise that character comedy is about watching people, it’s not so much about making people laugh by battering them. But if I used to meet someone and found they were a bit weird or a bit off, I’d get them to talk. And Paul would go, ‘ooh right, good one today, eh?’”

Competitive Dad - who trounces his on-screen children at everything they try - was based partially on his own father.

“There’s a bit of my dad there, the sandals and socks,” Simon smiles. “He was a nice fella, my dad, but he could be a bit competitive. I think a lot of those dads were. He’d play me at squash and take great pleasure in beating me.”

One Competitive Dad sketch guest-stars a 14-year-old Amy Winehouse, who Simon remembers as being “miserable”. “She didn’t really speak, she sat at the back and was a bit miserable, looking around like ‘what am I doing here?’ Which is probably right, because she’s a superstar so she was right to be thinking that,” he says.

Johnny Depp, who also cameoed on the show, cited Competitive Dad as one of his favourite characters. “Don’t tell Paul Whitehouse that, he’ll get very upset,” laughs Simon. “He’s quite competitive in that way. He’s always crying on about his BAFTAs to Steve Coogan. He and Coogan used to have a BAFTA-off.”

Much of Simon’s comedy was shaped by his own childhood, growing up in south-east London in the 1970s.

“I went to a rough secondary school and I would do impressions of Fawlty Towers so I wouldn’t get beaten up,” he reveals. “All comics did that. All my generations of comics, most of them would say that they did impressions of comic shows of the day to stop getting punched round the earhole. It’s just a way of surviving, isn’t it.”

Simon has been determined that his own children, with wife Ruth, wouldn’t make the same mistakes he did growing up. “I find it extraordinary that I’m still here sometimes,”he says “I have to stop myself with my son. He’s the loveliest kid, he’s obedient, he’s kind. He’s got a great sense of self, he’s not needy in any way.

“But sometimes I do feel like going, ‘I had a job and I was ironing my own trousers when I was 16! We had to go up the JobCentre on Deptford High Street, I got a job as a machinist once!’

“They are living in a bubble now - which we’ve created. Maybe it’s gone too far the other way. I think there has to be some form of hardship.”

A friend said something that stuck with Simon: “bring back 1970s parenting without the shaming.”

He explains: “You’ve got to wash the car, you’ve got to do your chores, but there’s no: ‘you are absolutely useless.’ There’s no need for that. We had rather too much of that when we were young, which is probably why we have so many comics of my generation.”

Simon is honest about his own shortcomings, admitting that, just as he was finding fame, he was secretly struggling with his spiralling drug habit.

Dope and ecstasy turned to cocaine, which then led to crack, as he chronicled in his 2011 autobiography, Comedy and Error.

And the other members of the Fast Show cast didn’t know how bad things had become. “I was running with a loose crowd having just got on TV,” he says. Suddenly he had money to spend.

He failed to turn up to one of his own standup shows after England beat Spain in a football match, and refused to apologise to his support act, Dave Gorman. Luckily, meeting waitress Ruth in 1998 changed his law-breaking ways, and through her tough love he got himself sorted out.

“I grew out of it,” he says now. “I don’t really go to pubs anymore.”

Although a lot has changed since The Fast Show finished in 1997 (although there were specials in 2000 and 2014) Simon is looking forward to reuniting for the show’s nationwide tour in November. “All the old gang together again, it’ll be fun,” he says.

But fans won’t see their favourite characters growing up or - in the case of Paul Whitehouse’s Rowley Birkin QC - sobering up.

“Charlie [Higson] insists we keep it the same as it was, because it’s meant to be a greatest hits, so he doesn’t want jokes about fashionable things,” Simon smiles.

During his downtime, Simon has been working with long-term friend James Ohene-Djan, professor of Computer Science at Goldsmiths University, on MiCode - a QR code that keeps vital medical information and contacts stored in case of emergencies.

“It’s incredibly simple, so much so that I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been invented before,” says Simon, who has experience of caring for his father-in-law with Alzheimer's. “Our emergency services are so overrun. A&Es are stuffed, they’re at full stretch. So if you see someone lying on the ground on a Saturday night, is he drunk? Is he on drugs? But if he’s got a MiCode you can find out if he’s diabetic and needs glucose or whatever.”

For more information, go to micode.co.uk.