David Walliams talks to us about his hilarious new version of Cinderella
David Walliams on his fairy-tale revival - with a twist
‘I’ve always loved the Ugly Sisters’
The annual familyfriendly TV drama from David Walliams has become a key part of the festive period ever since the BBC adapted his first children’s book, The Boy In The Dress, in 2014. But this year, there’s no TV version of one of his much-loved books. Instead, he and his writers, the Dawson Brothers, have come up with this splendid spin on the Cinderella story, with a peach of a role for Walliams himself…
Was there ever a thought that you might play Cinderella? No. It’s a stretch for me to play Prince Charming! I’m 48 years old. I’m probably the oldest Prince Charming there has ever been – and the heaviest. We didn’t want it to be like a panto. It’s a fairy story first and foremost, so we wanted to cast proper actors and not do the gender-swap thing. Prince Charming can often be the least interesting role, can’t he? He is mostly just being handsome... Yes, and that’s also a stretch for me. We’ve tried to make him smug and arrogant and unlikable. This is the sequel to Cinderella, but they’ve still only just met. All she knows about him is that he is Prince Charming and he’s handsome. When the original story ends with, “And they all lived happily ever after,” you think that can’t be true. Life’s not like that. So, it was interesting working out what the story could be moving forward. Although there have been lots of different versions of Cinderella, I’m not aware that anyone has done a sequel before. Were you tempted to write this as your next book rather than a TV show? I am thinking of doing it as a book, but that will come out after the TV show has been on. The hope is that we’ll do more fairy stories. It could become an interesting series, where you revisit the characters and create new narratives, because there are aspects of these stories that people are picking up on now. Questioning things like Sleeping Beauty being kissed while she’s asleep, and unfair treatment of characters that really hadn’t done anything wrong. We’re thinking about Jack And The Beanstalk as well. Jack steals from the giant – what has the giant done wrong? As a writer, is there one fairy-tale character you’d have loved to have created? I love villains like Rumpelstiltskin. He reminds me of Simon Cowell, because he’s only little but he’s evil. [Laughs.] I also like the troll who lives under the bridge in The Three Billy Goats Gruff. It’s weird and disturbing. In Cinderella, I’ve always loved the Ugly Sisters. Had you already met your co-star Sian Gibson through your friend Peter Kay? I’d met Sian while I was on holiday in Dubai. Peter, I know quite well, but we’re not in constant communication. He was in Dubai on holiday and somebody came up to him and said, “You’re the second celebrity I’ve seen today.” He asked who the first was, then texted me and invited me over.
So, that’s when I met Sian and we hung out. I’m a huge fan of Car Share. Sian’s a very smart lady. She co-wrote that with Peter and put in a brilliant performance. We didn’t want to have a Cinderella who was in her twenties, because with me being 48, we thought that might feel a bit icky. Sian is great. She’s a fine comic actress and she’s got a warmth about her, so you care about her. ■