UR TV CAST

The couple divorced early in their son’s life, prompting in him a craving for attention. At school, he studied performing arts, but when any natural acting talent was becoming increasingly conspicuous by its absence, he turned instead to comedy. But his comedy routines were also lacking, and so he considered quitting his very nominal showbiz life when the offer came to host The 11 O’Clock Show. Here, at last, Lee was able to indulge, as he so succinctly puts it, “my twatness”. A year into the job, he received his first death threat.”Oh God, the whole stalker thing,” he says, with a visible shudder “That was terrible, just horrible. What happened was, I referred to [former EastEnders actress] Daniella Westbrook as a coked-up slut on TV. Yes, it was pretty harsh, I suppose, but that was kind of the point of the whole show.

Anyway, I then started getting threats from somebody connected to her, I think.”Under police advice, he was instructed to move out of the flat he shared with his friend Mackenzie Crook, and into a hotel while the situation was investigated.”It went on for quite a while, actually, and it made me and everybody around me quite ill, but it ended quite amusingly, almost by accident. My stalker called me up one night, very pissed, and forgot to block his phone number. I called him back asking if he was the bloke that had been threatening to kill me, and that was it, basically. I passed his number on to the police, he was fined, and it all went away, thank God.”If the episode had taught him anything, he says, it was to watch his mouth.

Were he a better man, he would have heeded such advice.”I don’t know what it is, but as soon as you turn a camera on me, a mist descends and I feel a compulsion to see how far I can push things.” He laughs like a mischievous six-year-old. “Granted, it probably hasn’t done me many favours, but what can I do? This is who I am.”After the worst year of his life, Iain Lee says he is coming into 2005 with renewed vigour. He recently turned down invitations to appear on both I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! and Celebrity Big Brother because, “while I’m desperate, I’m not that desperate – yet”. Instead, he is about to be rescued by Bob Mortimer (“a huge fan of mine, believe it or not,” he beams) on an ITV comedy show called Monkey Trousers, and is writing the pilot of a sitcom for Channel 5 with Mackenzie Crook about the life of rock’n'roll roadies. He has plans to take a stand-up show to the Edinburgh Festival later in the year, and has just been employed by London radio station LBC, hosting a late-night phone-in show which he says he loves as he gets to speak to “right-wing religious fascists and horny housewives”.But still, his childhood ambition has yet to be fully realised. Iain Lee is keen – no, he is “desperate” – to front his own late-night Channel 4 talk show. He likes to think he could be quite brilliant at it.”There are lots of talented people out there,” he says dismissively, “and Jimmy Carr is, I suppose, one of them, and Jonathan Ross is another.