Book review: The Life of Lee by Lee Evans

IT IS no surprise that autobiographies by comedians have become big sellers. The best jesters are more than able to string a sentence together, so there may be no need for ghost writers.

And our modern, iconic, arena-filling mega-clowns also have a natural narrative arc, going from losers to beloved household name winners. Throw in a few demons, relationship troubles and tragedies and you have that crucial X Factor-style “journey”.

In this fiercely competitive field, Lee Evans’s autobiography looks like being the biggest stocking-filler. Evans is a genuine enigma. A working-class lad who has done Samuel Beckett, in the West End alongside Michael Gambon, been to Hollywood and played the biggest live solo shows in the UK. But you do not get any illuminating anecdotes about this in The Life of Lee, which ends with him winning his first talent competition and picking up a cheque for £250, which keeps the bailiffs at bay.

Despite being an academic dropout, Evans has tried a bit of analysis on himself for the book, concluding that being different and moving house a lot he has always been an outsider and that somehow performing onstage is his way of fitting in, his way of saying “be my friend”. The playground chump becomes a theatre hero. While never resorting to the cliché of saying he turned to humour because he was bullied, the subtext is clear – getting laughs was his way of escaping underdog status.

Evans writes accessibly as he recalls growing up on a rough estate in Bristol and later in a slightly less rough part of Billericay, where he was an amateur boxer and art student. His father, Dave, was a modestly successful club entertainer and Lee vividly recalls being backstage with him at a scampi-in-your-lap club when he opened for Tommy Cooper. The sight of the Fez-festooned performer who could get a room giggling without even saying anything left a lasting impression. Two decades later Evans would be able to repeat the trick.

The most life-changing moment, however, was a street brawl when out with his mates. While his friends took a beating, Evans fled. An understandable response when a gang of Basildon hooligans is bearing down on you but it made him vow that he would never run away again; he would stand up and overcome any obstacle – “any risk, any challenge, anybody or anything” – and in the process became one of this country’s top entertainers.

Yet this man with genuine funny bones maintains that professional stand-up was a happy accident, which came about when his musical act got laughs and he enjoyed the buzz. As this book finishes, he discovers that people will pay to see him larking about, which clearly leaves the way open for a sequel following his golden years. Evans might play the fool but he is clearly not as dumb as he seems.

The Life of Lee

by Lee Evans

Michael Joseph, £20

• Bruce Dessau is the author of Beyond a Joke: Inside The Dark World of Stand-Up Comedy (Preface, £18.99)