
David Walliams
- 53 years old
- English
- Actor, writer and author
Press clippings Page 38
David Walliams to voice BGT dog Pudsey in movie
The 42-year-old BGT judge has signed up alongside owner Ashleigh Butler and Scottish actor John Sessions, who will play a baddie.
Mark Jefferies, The Mirror, 5th September 2013Is David Walliams the new Roald Dahl?
Unbeknownst to adults, the Little Britain star has reinvented himself as one of the UK's most successful - and richest - children's authors. So what's his secret?
Imogen Russell Williams, The Guardian, 4th September 2013David Walliams - is there no end to his talents?
With £13m worth of sales for his children's books so far, the comedian and long-distance swimmer has been described as the 'Roald Dahl of his generation'
The Guardian, 4th September 2013New series, new academic year. There are more good gags in the opening minutes of Jack Whitehall's returning comedy than in a whole episode of David Walliams's Big School. Anything which makes fun of Mumford & Sons is fine by me.
Aidan Smith, The Scotsman, 1st September 2013The chemistry experiments that open each episode of Big School show how combinations of some fairly innocuous looking elements can produce unexpectedly spectacular results.
And the unlikely love triangle that throws David Walliams, Catherine Tate and Philip Glenister into a test tube is still delivering plenty of bangs for your buck.
The culmination of this week's episode finds the desperately uncool Mr Church and the not-as-cool-as-she-pretends-she-is French teacher Miss Postern perched cosily together on her sofa on a Saturday night watching Strictly.
"Has the one on the end got a wife?" Mr Church inquires.
Also this week, drug dealing has become a problem at Greybridge School - a chance for all the teaching staff to unite and tackle the problem in their usual, ill-informed way.
And that means another duet.
Jane Simon, The Mirror, 30th August 2013If Bad Education was a child, it would be one of those bright but infuriating kids with ADHD who fly around the room never quite settling at anything. One whose moments of brilliance are punctuated by tiring bouts of 'look at me, look at me' daftness.
At least Jack Whitehall's comedy - debuting on BBC iPlayer - feels like it's taking place in the 21st century unlike David Walliams and his oddly dated Big School. Whitehall's hopeless goon of a teacher, Alfie Wickers, one of those types who wants to be mates with the kids rather than, you know, actually teaching them anything, feels absolutely in tune with the way education is going.
And, in-between descending into cringe-making farce, Whitehall mines comedy gold from potshots at Mumford & Sons ('you're too young to appreciate a good dinner-party anthem when you hear one') and his ill-fated efforts at convincing colleague Miss Gulliver of his boyish charms. Efforts not entirely dissuaded by her admission that she bats for the other team.
'I am angry and aroused and upset,' was his reaction to her sudden conversion to lesbianism. 'But mostly aroused.' When he's dishing out the banter, Whitehall is a sharp writer. But a lot of Bad Education flails around in the shallow end of physical comedy, with extended sequences at a swimming gala failing to make much of a splash.
That said, it did allow the somewhat niche delight of watching Mathew Horne's head (teacher) attempting to break in a pair of Speedos and Whitehall streaking around the corridors, blinded by a horror-movie spin on a chlorine allergy that made him look like a Doctor Who alien. It was high on energy but low on subtlety, driven by the false assumption that physical freakiness is so funny it requires no other target.
Whitehall should ditch the slapstick and stick to the staff and classroom sniping. Because when he does it's A*. Otherwise, it's an epic fail.
Keith Watson, Metro, 28th August 2013Big School is unapologetically old school in its comic approach - it is currently BBC Comedy's holy grail to find a popular, mainstream and peak-time sitcom - but I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining and funny it was.
Nobody is ever going to die of laughter while watching Big School, but creating characters an audience wants to spend half an hour with is the bedrock of all sitcoms, and these are well drawn, good fun and beautifully played by an illustrious cast that resolutely resists the temptation to do 'funny acting'.
David Walliams - who shares a writing credit with the self-styled Dawson Brothers, who were presumably leaders of an outlaw gang before turning to comedy - stars as chemistry teacher Mr Church, who harbours unrequited feelings for french teacher Miss Postern, played by Catherine Tate.
Walliams is sweet and funny, but pitches Church at the asexual end of camp, which effectively prevents any romantic chemistry developing between the couple and drives one of the show's major themes up a particularly blind alley.
It is also a shame that the kids at the school hardly get a look-in on the action - an oversight that effectively doomed school-set sitcom Chalk back in the 1990s - as it is common knowledge among teachers that the students are the funniest, silliest and most unpredictable part of any school.
Harry Venning, The Stage, 27th August 2013The second episode of David Walliams' easy going comedy, bringing together an ensemble of recognisable faces, including Catherine Tate as the new, 'glamorous but knows it' French teacher. That man from Ashes to Ashes (Philip Gleinster), who plays the moronic 'geezer' of a P.E. teacher. That guy from the BT adverts and Black Mirror (Daniel Rigby), as the 'real music' fanatic, and Rising Damp star, Frances de la Tour, in fine form as the hilarious drunkard of a headmistress.
Each episode plays out like a short film, with ever predictable plot twists, low points and resolution. Textbook stuff. However this is done with an unexpected charm and warmth, simply due to the character stereotypes and all of their cringe-worthy glory. This combined with the staffroom perspective is a fairly original mix, matched only by Chris Lilley's Summer Heights High (which if you haven't watched I strongly recommend).
Whether this form will get repetitive is still up to question however, as there's only so many times you can watch a short There's Something About Mary.
So if you're gouging your own eyes at the thought of having to sit through another moody police drama (even writing this fills me with dread), and long for something as light and easy as angels delight while watching Sesame Street, then tune in to BBC One at 9.
Guy James, On The Box, 24th August 2013David Walliams' tedious documentary Snapshot in Time, in which he reunited old school chums, might have given cause for concern about his sitcom, entering its second episode tonight. But Big School is genuinely funny, the absolute highlight being Headmistress Baron, played by Frances de la Tour, who's brilliantly dry and has all the best lines. 'It had better not be a play about talking fannies,' she drawls from behind her huge desk before gulping from a glass of wine.
And Catherine Tate's not bad either as French teacher Miss Postern. Is it just us, or is she getting less outlandish (read: annoying) the more she's on telly? We approve. Miss Postern's unfounded haughtiness is snigger-worthy, especially when she's referring to mega pop star 'La Femme Gah Gah'. You see, this week the school is running a talent show and the teachers are taking part, giving Walliams's uptight character Mr Church a chance to get his oboe out for the ladies. Not laugh-a-minute stuff, but there are certainly enough funnies to amuse.
Danielle Goldstein, Time Out, 23rd August 2013David Walliams's school-set sitcom limps on. Miss Postern is organising a talent show to raise money for Children In Need. So PE teacher Mr Gunn attempts his Keith Lemon impression, sad sack geography teacher Mr Barber sings a Welsh song, and Mr Church gets his oboe out. All the classroom tropes - the coarse PE guy, the hot new teacher, the boring chemistry teacher - are here, and not terribly funny. It makes you pine for Channel 4's far superior Teachers, from more than a decade ago.
Bim Adewunmi, The Guardian, 23rd August 2013