Daily Mirror

FRANK SKINNER ON COMEDY, LOV

- BY JULIE MCCAFFERY

Frank Skinner cracked so many jokes about sex in his early days he was an icon of 1990s ladism. Now, as he returns to stand-up with material bereft of bedroom antics, he candidly admits art reflects life.

The 62-year-old comic has been with partner Cath Mason for 16 years and they have a seven-year-old son, Buzz.

Frank says: “I used to talk about sex because it was a big thing in my life.

“I’m no good at inventing stuff, so I just talked about things that happened to me. But if I was talking about it now I would be straining my memory to the nth degree.”

Rather than do that, Frank will share anecdotes from his three decades in comedy for his new stand-up show, simply called Showbiz. In most of the stories, he does not come out well.

There was the time he mistook Madonna for TV presenter Dani Behr. The two occasions when Pamela Anderson’s flirting fell flat. And the angry reply he received from Gene Wilder when he wrote to thank him for coming on his show.

Frank reveals: “Gene wrote back to me and said he couldn’t believe I’d thanked him as it was the worst interview he had ever done.

“When he died recently and people said what a lovely man he was, I was holding back.”

Lots of Frank’s early material centred on the fact that he felt useless with women. He lost his virginity to a prostitute for a £5 bet, but was put off when he could hear her kids being shushed

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