So, they got their break by working for the Oxbridge mafia…..……
Simon Day didn't, started out as a stand-up and met the others through working with Vic & Bob.
There you go, Vic Reeves! Vic got his breaks through Malcolm Hardee. Now he was working class:
"Hardee was born in
Lewisham, South East London, near the
River Thames, and came from a long line of
lightermen[3] who earned their living on
tugs pulling
barges on the river. He was the eldest son of Frank and Joan Hardee. He spent his first two years in an
orphanage while his mother was in hospital with
tuberculosis[1] and was educated at three South East London schools –
St Stephen's
Church of England primary,
Colfe's School, and
Sedgehill comprehensive.
[1]
Expelled from the later two schools he drifted into petty crime:
[1] stealing
Coca-Cola from a local bottling plant, burgling a pawnbrokers
[8] and setting fire to a
Sunday school piano because he wanted to see "holy smoke".
[7] He served prison sentences for
cheque fraud, burglary and escaping custody;
[9] in 1967, he escaped from
Gaynes Hall Borstal dressed as a
monk.
[7][10] He also had
convictions for arson and once infamously stole a
Rolls-Royce[3] which he believed belonged to British cabinet minister
Peter Walker. (Walker later wrote to Hardee after reading about this widely reported story and denied it had been his car.)
[11]
Hardee decided to turn to showbusiness as a way of staying out of trouble, saying: "There are only two things you can do when you come out of prison and you want immediate employment. You can either be a
minicab driver or you can go into showbusiness"
[9] and "Prison is like
mime or
juggling – a tragic waste of time".
[1]"