David Walliams

David Walliams faces backlash for kissing a dolphin

'Shame on you!' David Walliams SLAMMED by fans and accused of promoting animal cruelty after sharing a holiday snap of himself kissing a captive dolphin in Dubai.

Outfit from Spaced appears in Red Dwarf XII

For reasons we've been unable to fathom, Ziggy Bryson's (played by Extras star Jamie Chapman) outfit of a military inspired, bulbous pink dress with a plumed helmet to match will be recognisable to any diehard fans of Spaced - the cult classic sitcom from Simon Pegg & Jessica Hynes. Yes, it's none other than that of non-gender specific conceptual artist Vulva (David Walliams)!

David Walliams collects OBE

The TV star and author was watched by his mother Kathleen and nephews Eddie and Frankie when he was presented with an OBE by the Princess Royal in recognition of his services to charity and the arts.

Little Britain isn't so small-minded now

In saying that he wouldn't black up for Little Britain now, Lucas is an indicator of a society that's kinder than it was 10 years ago.

Bad Dad revealed as David Walliams' 10th book

David Walliams' next children's book will be called Bad Dad, a "heart-warming rags to riches story" about a boy who tries to break his dad out of prison.

Preview - John Bishop: In Conversation With...

The Liverpudlian comic returns to W with his third interview series, starting with a fellow comedian: David Walliams.

It is pretty rare these days to find a show in which two people simply talk to each other for the best part of an hour. So, while this is fairly basic chatshow fare, it's still refreshing viewing. Tonight's third series opener features David Walliams subjecting himself to Bishop's insistent interrogations. They cover the swimming and cross-dressing but also, with admirable and appropriate earnestness, Walliams's depression.

Bruce Dessau on 30 years attending the Fringe

The Edinburgh Fringe is 70 years old this year. Veteran comedy critic Bruce Dessau remembers 3/7ths of it. At least, he remembers the really odd stuff.

Even at the peak of its popularity, Matt Lucas and David Walliams's Little Britain was a PC-baiting nightmare. Especially uncomfortable in its portrayals of disability, it featured characters such as Andy, who pretends to need a wheelchair due to laziness, and Anne, a truly outrageous creation that exists purely to mock those with severe learning difficulties. Yet it is West Country teen Vicky Pollard that makes Little Britain a textbook example of problematic TV. Pollard was a perfect storm of conservative anxieties: she was working class, she was overweight, she was a single mother (of 12 children), she was a criminal. At one point she swapped her child for a Westlife CD.

"People always say 'oh I know a Vicky Pollard' and I think that's when you have a kind of real cultural moment", said Walliams on The South Bank Show in 2005. The "cultural moment" she actually heralded was presumably not the one Walliams was thinking of. Soon, Pollard had become the poster girl for the demonisation of the working classes. She was a character on to which people could project their hatred of poor women, such as journalist James Delingpole, who said Pollard represented "gym-slip mums who choose to get pregnant as a career option; pasty-faced, lard-gutted slappers who'll drop their knickers in the blink of an eye."

Yet Pollard and her real life peers weren't just a punchbag for the press. By the turn of the decade, hostility towards low-income people was so overwhelming that the Tories ran a poster saying "Let's cut benefits for those who refuse work" to help them win votes. Austerity then ended up disproportionately punishing single parents, 86% of whom are women. There's no yeah-but-no about it, Pollard helped fuel the mood that got the UK to that point. Little Britain remains a thoroughly questionable chapter in British comedy because of it.