Comedian, presenter and warm-up extraordinaire Lee Peart — co-host of Bottoms Up! with Alan Carr and support act on Judi Love's UK tour — sits down with Jamie & David to share the three stories that shaped who he became — spanning early validation, the thrill of being pulled into a story, and the discovery of his own comedic voice.
Stories Discussed
Story 1: Talking Heads — Alan Bennett
Type: Monologue (specifically Her Big Chance). A tragicomic monologue about a small-part actress who doesn't quite see how she's being used. Lee performed it aloud in a Year 9 English class in Cleethorpes and brought the house down — the first time he felt the power of controlling a room.
Story 2: The Da Vinci Code — Dan Brown
Type: Novel. Lee's self-described "gateway book" — read on a family holiday in France, straight off the back of Harry Potter. It made him feel smart, grown-up, and like a proper reader for the first time.
Story 3: Me Talk Pretty One Day — David Sedaris
Type: Essay collection. The first book that made Lee laugh out loud. Sedaris's style — observational storytelling, self-deprecation as art, finding humour in humiliation — directly shaped Lee's own comedy and what he calls "the fall from grace."