
David Walliams
- 53 years old
- English
- Actor, writer and author
Press clippings Page 65
In pictures: Walliams's Sport Relief bike ride
David Walliams has rounded up a bunch of celebrities to take part in a non-stop cycle relay from John O'Groats to Land's End - beginning on 1 March - to raise money for Sport Relief. Walliams talks BBC News through his team's strengths and weaknesses.
BBC News, 4th February 2010David Walliams to marry model Lara Stone
Little Britain star David Walliams is engaged to Dutch model Lara Stone, his publicist has confirmed.
BBC News, 20th January 2010More youthful dynamism over on E4, where a group of precocious teens display their blossoming talent in a new sketch-show, School of Comedy. Presumably, this is what David Walliams was like as a youngster. Annoying. And not that funny (no change there, then). To give the kids their due, not all of the attempted sketches were terrible. Indeed, the opening one, set in a primary school parent-teacher meeting, had me laughing out loud, as did the barrister who won over his jury by hypnosis. The problems come when they returned to the same set up for a second (and, sometimes, a third sketch). Hypnosis is funny. Not so much when he got out the Ouija board and even less so when Barry Manilow came out. You forgive them because they're only kids after all - and even at their worst they're still funny in an aren't-they-cute-in-the-school-play kind of way. But then, hang on, you think: what exactly are they doing on my telly? Especially at 10 o'clock at night. Someone, somewhere has some very powerful parents.
Alice-Azania Jarvis, The Independent, 2nd October 2009Fans of contemporary and classic comedy have had plenty to enjoy thanks to Radio 2 and Radio 4 lately. Following profiles of Frankie Howerd and Stanley Baxter, Dick Emery was the latest comedian to be featured in Radio 2's Comedy Greats series. An admirer of Emery, host David Walliams paid an affectionate tribute to a performer whose work seems sadly neglected nowadays. This despite the fact that The Dick Emery Show once pulled in TV audiences of 17 million.
Walliams and the other contributors to the programme made a convincing case for an Emery retrospective. Perhaps some of the material is un-PC or out-of-date nowadays, but that does not stop Carry On movies being broadcast on a regular basis. Time to give Emery a chance, I would say.
Lisa Martland, The Stage, 28th September 2009At last! BBC3 finally presents its miniscule audience with a programme that's worth watching. Although clearly produced with one eye on the terrestrial broadcast that will undoubtedly follow, Little Britain's debut on BBC3 has raised the quality of the channel's rotten comedy output significantly (which, let's face it wasn't very hard to do).
Chris Orton, Off The Telly, 23rd September 2009Noel Fielding joins Never Mind the Buzzcocks
Never Mind the Buzzcocks also plans guest hosts including Alex James and David Walliams.
Leigh Holmwood, The Guardian, 14th September 2009Rock Profile returns online
While Little Britain USA seemed to suggest that the duo were struggling to regain some of the originality that made the first LB series so watchable, when I heard that Lucas and Walliams were to revisit Rock Profile, I was hopeful that we'd see some of their creativity.
Scott Matthewman, The Stage, 11th May 2009You may think that rock and roll musicians in particular are in no need of being satirised, as they do the job pretty well themselves. Well, that doesn't mean they aren't ripe for a bit of a ribbing. Matt Lucas, himself no stranger to making the michael out of rock gods with David Walliams in Rock Profile on BBC2, hosts this chronological countdown of the best of the mickey-takers.
Step forward Neil Innes with his tales of Rutlemania; Harry Shearer, who turns the amp all the way up to 11 with Spinal Tap (surely the definite send-up/homage) and the Hee Bee Gee Bees... remember Meaningless Songs (in Very High Voices)? They had Angus Deayton among their number but got Richard Curtis to write the lyrics. Not bad.
Quite why Stella Street is here is a bit of a mystery to me - just because Phil Cornwell and John Sessions get to practise their Mick and Keef voices doesn't make it satire.
Plenty of great music, a few lightly tossed anecdotes and - voila! - an hour of high-quality entertainment.
Frances Lass, Radio Times, 5th May 2009Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer first hosted their anarchic celebrity quiz show in 1993. The first of two programmes marking the show's 15th anniversary tonight is a documentary about the making of it - and, like Shooting Stars itself, the film is funny, eccentric and a little self-indulgent. Interspersed with interviews with some of the celebrities who found themselves subjected to Reeves' and Mortimer's particular kind of comedy (which veered from the surreal to the mildly offensive), the presenters themselves play various crew members reminiscing about their time working behind the scenes. This is a suitably unique way to contemplate a programme which Martine McCutcheon calls 'bizarre' and of which Larry Hagman said, "I've done some loony shows in my time but this is certainly the one."
Shooting Stars launched the career of Matt Lucas - who played scorekeeper George Dawes before he went on to global fame with David Walliams in Little Britain - and latterly also co-starred the often self-confessedly drunken comic Johnny Vegas.
Simon Horsford, The Telegraph, 29th December 2008A largely successful US spin off. I'm not sure that having Sebastian as the British Prime Minister works all that well and the Vicky Pollard stuff hasn't been great, but there's still much to enjoy.
Cool Blue Shed, 18th October 2008