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David Walliams

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David Walliams (born David Williams, August 20, 1971) is an English comedy actor, best known for his partnership with Matt Lucas in the sketch show Little Britain.

Biography

Born in Surrey to Peter (a London Transport engineer) and Kathleen Williams (a lab technician), Walliams was raised in Banstead. Both his parents appeared on The Friday Night Project when their son David was the guest star on the new show. Walliams was educated at Reigate Grammar School, where he was a contemporary of Robert Shearman. He was a member of the National Youth Theatre, which is where he met his future comedy partner Matt Lucas (Little Britain). He later studied Drama at the University of Bristol, where he was in the 1989-92 cohort - one year below Simon Pegg.

Walliams is a stage name. Walliams changed his name when he joined the actor's trade union known as Equity because there was already a member named David Williams. This was spoofed in a mock interview for the comedy show Rock Profile, when Robbie Williams is always referred to as 'Robbie Walliams'.

On 4 July 2006, Walliams successfully swam the English Channel to raise money for the charity Sport Relief. On 6 November 2006, he won The Mirror's Pride of Britain Award for the Most Influential Public Figure as he raised more than £1 million swimming the channel for the charity Sport Relief. Although initially tipped as a contender for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year poll for 2006, he failed to make the final shortlist of 10 contenders. Instead, Walliams was given a special award during the ceremony for his achievement. In July 2006, Walliams also became a Patron of the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY).

Walliams is left-handed.

As a young boy, David attended Collingwood Primary School, Surrey, England.

Career

His first known TV appearance was as Lesley Luncheonmeat on Sky One's show Games World in 1993. He appeared alongside Alex Verrey, who played Big Boy Barry, every Tuesday evening. After that he went on to be "The Lift" on the first series of the CBBC gameshow Incredible Games in 1994.

Walliams appeared alongside comedy partner Matt Lucas in the video of the Fat Les song Vindaloo, the unofficial anthem for the England national football team at the 1998 FIFA World Cup.

Together with The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss, he wrote and appeared in Doctor Who parodies The Pitch of Fear, The Web of Caves and The Kidnappers for BBC2's "Doctor Who Night" in 1999. He later performed in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio play Phantasmagoria, written by Gatiss. In 2000 he played Jake Plaskow in the BBC's Attachments, set in an internet start-up company. He appeared in an episode of Black Books in which he complained about getting second-hand smoke from the main character, who waved him off saying, "Forget about it, you can buy me a drink sometime." He also appeared as Rats in the surreal comedy by Rob Grant The Strangerers, shown on Sky One.

He appeared in an episode of EastEnders In 2003. He appeared in the second episode of Marple. Walliams has had a sitcom called Home in the pipeline since September 2003, having written most of it with potential co-star Rob Brydon. Ronnie Corbett said he agreed to appear in it. In 2000 he appeared in an episode of Simon Pegg's (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) Spaced as 'Vulva' an artist/collaborator from Brian's past and now a self proclaimed artist of impressionism.

In 2006, Walliams made an appearance in the movies A Cock and Bull Story. Later in the year he presented a documentary on James Bond, entitled David Walliams: My Life with James Bond.

In November 2007 he returned to non-comedic television, garnering excellent reviews for his portrayal of a suave and dangerous manipulator in Stephen Poliakoff's Capturing Mary.

He appears in the forthcoming film Virgin Territory.

Walliams has been cast as comedian Frankie Howerd in the forthcoming BBC4 TV film 'Rather You Than Me'. He has also signed a with HarperCollins to publish two children's books, the first of which will be released in autumn 2008.

Walliams and Lucas

Walliams and Lucas have appeared as grotesque caricatures of various rock musicians in the series Rock Profile and in the spoof documentary series Sir Bernard's Stately Homes. They were also stars of the Paramount Comedy Channel Show "Mash and Peas" and it was in this guise that they appeared in the Fat Les video (see above). They both had brief speaking roles in the movie Plunkett And Maclaine as prisoners.

They have appeared together in a music video for the Pet Shop Boys single "I'm with Stupid", in which the two are apparently auditioning their version of the song's video for Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, who are tied up and appear to be hostages. Among the characters played by Walliams in Little Britain are Emily Howard, the "rubbish transvestite", the mad Scottish hotel owner, Ray McCooney, and Sebastian Love, a camp aide (or aide de camp) to the Prime Minister, on whom he has a huge crush.

In 2006, as the pair toured Britain with a stage show, Little Britain Live, Walliams managed to fit in two hours of swimming training every morning in preparation for his cross-channel swim. On 3 April 2005, the swimming pool scene featuring Lou & Andy was hailed as the greatest comedy sketch of all time in a Channel 4 poll, on the show The 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches. (Vicky Pollard's swimming pool sketch came fourth.)

Charity swims

English Channel

On 4 July 2006 Walliams swam the English Channel for the charity Sport Relief (part of Comic Relief).

He successfully completed the swim in 10 hours and 34 minutes to cover the 35 km (22 miles) stretch of sea, the equivalent of 700 lengths of an Olympic standard swimming pool. This was wrongly reported as one of the top 50 recorded times for an unaided Channel crossing (He actually placed 167th at the time of crossing in only the CSA listings, excluding the CSPF listings). However, he did raise over £1,000,000 in donations. It took nine months of training to prepare for the swim. The training had to coincide with Walliams and Lucas's Little Britain Live tour, so every morning before performing he had to complete several hours of training before performing on stage in the evening. Walliams first swam from Lee-on-the-Solent near to the City of Portsmouth Hampshire to the Isle Of Wight in around 2 hours and he also completed an eight hour swim off the coast of Croatia before embarking on the cross-channel attempt. Walliams has insisted that prior to his challenge he had never seriously taken part in any sport.

The Bluetones, whose lead singer Mark Morriss is a friend of Walliams, wrote a song in honour of his achievement. Entitled "Fade In/Fade Out", it can be found on their self-titled album which was released on 9 October 2006. Walliams was awarded a special award in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year in recognition. Matt Lucas made a documentary of this, entitled "Little Britain's Big Swim", which can be found on the Little Britain Live DVD.

Straights of Gibraltar

On 7 March 2008 Walliams along with James Cracknell swam the 12 mile Straight of Gibraltar, from from Spain to Morocco again for Sport Relief. He successfully completed the swim in just over 4 and a half hours.

Walliams was sick in the water and the pair saw dolphins and whales in the shark infested waters.

The swim was the last leg of Cracknell's 10-day trip from the UK to Africa in which he rowed the Channel and cycled through France and Spain.

Personal life

The media have made allegations that Walliams is gay or bisexual and humorous references to this are made on the DVD commentary of Little Britain. On 8 out of 10 Cats on 20 July 2007, Walliams humorously said: "You've got me all wrong. I'm gay." However, in an interview with "Queerday", Walliams asserted that his life would be easier if he were attracted to men. Previous rumours (mostly perpetuated by the red top press) that Walliams and Lucas were in a relationship were proved unfounded when Lucas registered his civil partnership with his male partner in 2006.

Confirmed ex-girlfriends of Walliams include Katy Carmichael, Patsy Kensit, Australian model Emily Scott and Caroline Aherne. In the book Inside Little Britain he refers to a woman he fell in love with as "Miss X", who was later revealed in the media to be Lisa Snowdon.

One of Walliams's good friends is Jimmy Carr and although he has appeared several times in the comedy panel game show 8 out of 10 Cats, which is hosted by Carr, he makes numerous references to not knowing who Carr is.

Charitable activity

David Walliams will be joining Olympic Gold Medalist James Cracknell on the final part of his journey from the UK to Africa. The money raised by the challenge will go towards the BBC's Sport Relief charity and highlights of the action will be broadcast on March 14th.

Selected filmography

Bibliography

  • Neil Simpson: Yeah but No But: The Biography of Matt Lucas and David Walliams: London: John Blake: 2006: ISBN 1-84454-258-0
  • Boyd Hilton, Matt Lucas, David Walliams: Inside Little Britain: London: Ebury Press: 2006: ISBN 0-09-191231-8

References

External links



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