Celebrities share the stories behind their favourite photographs. This week it’s the turn of comedian Rob Beckett, 35. 

Comedian Rob Beckett, 35, (pictured) shared the stories behind a selection of his favourite photographs

1988: I’m about two years old here and look like the Ghostbusters baddie, Slimer. Growing up in a small, three-bedroom house in south-east London, I was a very chubby child. My dad Dave worked away as a lorry driver, I had three older brothers, Dan, Russ and Darren, and we had a newborn baby, Joe, so my librarian mum Sue fed me to keep me quiet

1990: Here I am with Russ and Darren – that’s me on the right. Mum wanted to give us names we could use in a proper job – you can’t call your kid Sebastian if they’re going to work on a building site. My three years at Canterbury Christ Church University was the only time in my life I had my own room – first I shared with my brothers and later with my wife Lou

2001: This is me at my secondary school, Coopers in Chislehurst, where comedian Tom Allen was three years above me. It was a place where you were either good at football, or fighting, or girls fancied you, that was it – knowledge held no value. It was only when I started doing comedy and went up to the Edinburgh Festival a decade later that I realised intelligence could give you status and be cool

2011: Winning the Amused Moose Laugh Off at Edinburgh – where this photo was taken with fellow comedian Ian Smith – led to my first stand-up show, Rob Beckett’s Big Mouth, and playing at the Adelaide Fringe. I had to turn my 15-minute set into a full hour right there and then. I also got a horrible chest infection and paying for the antibiotics cleared out my overdraft. I couldn’t even afford suncream. Luckily a nice English expat family saw my show and invited me to a barbecue. They kept on coming to check on me because they could see how down I was

2013: Presenting the reality spin-off I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! Now! was my first job on TV. Being launched into a show with two million viewers every night made me instantly famous. I found it quite difficult to deal with but it got easier. I didn’t know what I was doing but my co-presenters Joe Swash and Laura Whitmore [pictured] were brilliant. The nice English family I’d met in Adelaide came to visit, and me and Joe shared a room so they could have my apartment. It was nice to be able to offer them something, as they’d helped me without asking for anything

2017: A pregnant Lou and I went to Jonathan Ross’s Halloween party in Hampstead as zombies – walking through the paparazzi is like a power surge because everything is so bright. Lou and I met in our early twenties. She became a history teacher and paid all the bills for three years when I was earning no money as a comedian

2019: Me and Romesh Ranganathan started out doing all the same rubbish gigs together – my first paid stand-up job earned me £40 for playing a Peterborough pub with no mic, stage or lights – and here we are meeting Prince William at the Royal Variety Performance, which we presented together. We were booked as a double act but we’re just mates who do comedy. It feels like we’ve been a big part of each other’s journey. We’ve both been through the same things at the same time, and been able to ring each other about it

2020: Here I am in Cape Town playing cricket in the TV challenge series Rob & Romesh Vs, in front of 20,000 fans singing, ‘It’s Rob Beckett and he’s got big teeth.’ Later I downed a pint in one and got a call from Lou a minute later giving me grief for drinking at work – a friend had seen it on TV and texted her. You can’t get away with anything these days, even on the other side of the world

Rob & Romesh Vs, Thursday, 10pm, Sky One and Now TV. Rob is a team captain on Paul Sinha’s TV Showdown, tonight, 10pm, ITV.

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk

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