The Scribblings of a Madcap Shambleton

‘Growing up in the jungles of India there was no need for drawing or painting, I would sometimes arrange ants into primitive still lives or scratch out portraits onto the trunks of trees. Things changed when I was 11. A lame tiger who owned a stationery shop gave me the keys to his stockroom. I would roll around in acrylic and oil pastels in a reverie, licking canvases and tucking coloured pencils into my wild hair. It was here I learned how to draw and paint well enough to be accepted into Croyden Art College. There, Dexter Dalwood (Turner Prize nominee) taught me and after two years under his supreme tutelage and much hard graft he advised me to become a comedian.’