To tell you all that David Walliams has been dropped by his publisher Harper Collins?

me too, he wasn’t convicted of any crime. Hearsay and accusations doesn’t make anything fact. I couldn’t listen to another song of Gary glitters and every song of R Kelly’s that I loved was deleted from my playlists. I actually have an issue now with anything by or produced by p diddy though too. TBH I’ve started to question the whole industry 😔

Good. The guys a scumbag. I have a friend who works in tv and knows a few things the public don’t. He’s a huge creep who deserves what’s happening to him

Well I skipped some of it but the guy whose trousers got pulled down was in his 30s I think. What a horrible sketch though. I would've been cringing if I'd been in the audience. It really shows DW's true colours.

I agree. Some of Little Britain was very funny.

And Come Fly With Me was funny in part too.

2011 is 15 years ago! Not exactly 'recent.' It's almost a generation.

Vicky Pollard character was funny.
And the computer says no character!

Why?

Yes, I agree - they had a lot of clever, funny, well-observed and well-executed ideas that were spoiled by the unpleasant ones.

I loved the idea of the budget Irish airline Our Lady Air flying people to Barcelona, but to a cheaper airport a bit further out from the centre, to save on costs... and that airport 'just outside' Barcelona happened to be in Ireland with a 2,000+ mile shuttle bus into the city centre!

Arguably, they could have kept the Precious character as she was, but had her played by somebody like Andi Osho, Gina Yashere or Jocelyn Jee Esien... but they prided themselves on playing all of the characters themselves, so I'm sure they wouldn't have wanted that.

I suppose I can sort of see the basic thinking in being very versatile as an actor as an impressive thing; it's kind of the whole point of acting, unless you're somebody like Hugh Grant and only ever play posh white male Hugh Grant-type characters... but there are socially-accepted boundaries, which blacking up very definitely crosses over by a mile.

It's embarrassing to admit but when I see clips of "Come Fly With Me" I do find myself laughing 😬
If they hadn't basically done blackface for certain characters it would just be a funny sketch show.
But they did which makes it so embarrassing, cringe and completely and utterly inappropriate.
There was no reason for the character who ran the coffee shop ("we got no cups") to be a Caribbean lady. The joke would have still worked if they had played her as a white male (which Matt Lucas obviously is).

lol 😂

I'm trying to be careful how I word this, but usually, when a sexually predatory man makes a mid-career pivot to become a beloved children's entertainer, he's doing so because it provides power and access to a target demographic. The age old story.

And it would not be the first time vague rumours about someone being "inappropriate" with "younger" people were floated by the press, which were later revealed to be, shall we say, severely understating things. But it was all the media could say while an investigation was ongoing.

I hope I'm wrong, but "inappropriate" behaviour towards women doesn't usually generate such a strong reaction. The vagueness of the allegations and the strength of the publisher reaction don't quite add up here. Neil Gaiman's publishers haven't memory holed his work like this, and the public backlash to him was much higher than anything we've seen towards David Walliams so far.

My gut instinct is that some kind of criminal charge is pending, and no one is able to speak until it does. I hope I'm wrong, but this is all feeling uncomfortably familiar.

The husband and wife pilot and copilot couple, where he had had an affair were amusing, as was the racist, ignorant immigration officer.

It's (sorry I have to say this) actually quite funny in places.....😬

It was a parody of Airline and Airport, making fun of Ryan Air, Easy Jet (especially Stelios) and airport documentaries. Fewer weird sketches than Little Britain, but more of the same in that many of the characters, including the aforementioned Precious were the same catchphrases repeated over and over again. And, of course, a white man blacking up as a West Indian woman means it is amazing the BBC showed it just fifteen years ago.

That show luckily completely missed me. Sounds shit though. 😂

Trust me there is more just waiting to break, and a certain journalist at The Guardian has been trying to do it for years. Where young women are concerned it’s very difficult when they (understandably) don’t want to go on record or waive their right to anonymity and that’s without going up against someone ‘powerful’ and the ability to pay to have lawyers defend them before anything gets anywhere beyond an accusation. He can and does pay to shut things up.

I know who he is, and what he is, and I’m hoping against hope that it can finally publicly come to light.

The industry and anyone associated with him do well to create as much distance as they can.

Yes, the use of “admit” in this way is very much the province of gutter press journalism. You’d think posters would realise this.

Utter nonsense about JKR and she doesn’t “admit” anytning because it her support for womens rights isn’t a shameful secret, it is something she is vociferously open about.
She does more for women (and children) than almost anybody.

I think it's fine to comment, as the publisher has publicly stated they are cutting all ties with him. Naturally when such a statement is made, people will speculate as to the reasons. He doesn't have to have committed a crime for his behaviour to have been unacceptable, and there seems to be evidence that that has been the case.

Thought he was dropped ages ago.
Never liked his humour from the beginning- incontinent women, bitty etc.
There’s always been something very strange about him and the vile stuff he said about contestants on BGT sealed the deal.
He obviously thought he could get away with anything and he’s trashed his own career.

Yes I had commented because I had no idea what the thread was originally about...that was my point!

There was more black face in their show Come Fly With Me, especially Precious which aired as recently as 2011.

There is that!!! If you're hopeless at cooking for yourself, you don't go out looking for the worst available takeaway place!