MORE THAN ONE GAY; Little Britain, the must-see TV show of the

Sunday Herald, The, Oct 31, 2004 by Words Peter Ross

HOW gay is Little Britain? On a scale from Will Young to Liberace, you've got to figure that the hit TV sketch show sits at around Marc Almond, somewhere in the middling range. Exhibit A is Dafydd, Little Britain's break-out character, the self-styled "only gay in the village", whose outre homosexuality is somewhat undone by his unwillingness to actually have sex.

Then there is Sebastian, floppy-haired flunky to British PM Anthony Head, who adoringly reports the findings of a focus group: "They're very happy with your work in Northern Ireland, Prime Minister, and there's strong approval of the health service reforms. They want you in cycling shorts, they like it when your hair's a bit wet. Education, could do better oh, and they'd really love to see you wrestle a man."

Even Lou and Andy, Little Britain's malingering wheelchair-user and his long-suffering carer, are named in honour of Lou Reed and Andy Warhol who had one of the most ambiguous love-hate relationships of all time. No wonder that when David Baddiel was shown the pilot episode he described it as "a gay Goodness Gracious Me".

Of course, not all of Little Britain's characters are gay - Vicky Pollard, the fecund teen who swapped her baby for a Westlife CD, gives heterosexuality a bad name - but every single one of them is queer.

Matt Lucas and David Walliams, the duo behind Little Britain, have always been open about their sexuality; Lucas is gay, Walliams straight. Indeed, Walliams has been linked to a string of tabloid- endorsed stunnas including Patsy Kensit and Abi Titmuss, a woman who may have enchanted him with the comedic possibilities of her name as much as her more obvious charms.

Had these romantic liaisons not been reported, one might naturally assume that Walliams was not in the vagina business. He is certainly a grandmaster of campness, the ne plus ultra exponent of Frankie Howerd impersonations. As a teenager, he liked nothing more than wandering around the gardens of Hampton Court, reciting lines from Brideshead Revisited, and so great is his devotion to the Pet Shop Boys that he once went to see an Oscar Wilde play specifically because Neil Tennant was going to be in the audience.

Walliams plays Sebastian and Emily Howard, the worst transvestite in Britain, whose shrill cri de coeur, "I'm a lady!" has become an unlikely playground mantra. Little Britain, for Walliams, is clearly an opportunity to turn a pastime into a profession. "When I was three, my sister used to dress me up in bridesmaid's dresses and stuff from her dressing-up box," he said, recently. "And then, when I was at university I went out with this actress called Katy Carmichael, and she liked dressing me up as well I've always had a strong feminine side, and enjoyed and embraced it - I've never really had a problem with it."

In the new series, currently setting records for viewing figures on BBC3, Emily Howard is joined by a protege, Florence, whose gender- crossing is even more hapless (Florence has a moustache).

Matt Lucas plays Florence and Dafydd among others. Gay and attached, he is less enchanted than Walliams with the draggy side of Little Britain. This may have something to do with the fact that in his first year at secondary school, as a sufferer of alopecia, he had to wear a woman's wig as you couldn't get child sizes on the NHS.

"When I left school I was full of angst, like any teenager, and I channelled it all into comedy," he has said. "I was completely focused on it, like a young footballer. I had no life outside of stand-up - I completely buried my head in the sand as far as a social life was concerned. I didn't go to gay clubs or anything like that. Part of the reason, I now think, is that I'd grown up with such overwhelmingly negative images of homosexuality that I didn't want to explore that side of my life very much.

"I loved all the camp comics of my childhood, Kenneth Williams and Frankie Howerd and John Inman, but school gave me a very bad feeling about being gay and then, when I was about 12 - bang, along came Aids. I can't think of a single positive thing about being gay at that time."

Since graduating from the National Youth Theatre, which was where in the early Nineties he met Walliams, Lucas has not shied away from projects with a homosexual bent. Most famously, he played the performance artist Leigh Bowery in Boy George's musical, Taboo, and upcoming roles include a gay Venetian duke in Casanova, the new historical drama from Queer As Folk writer Russell T Davies.

So what's the future for Little Britain? Well, it certainly doesn't look as if it's going to straighten up any time soon, certainly not with George Michael due to appear in the Comic Relief special. We can only guess what that might entail (Marjorie Dawes singing I Want Your Sex?) but one thing is for sure - Little Britain is our funniest comedy of the moment; to quote narrator Tom Baker, "anyone that disagrees is either a gay or a mental."

Little Britain is on BBC3 on Tuesdays at 9pm and will be shown on BBC1 later this year