Why David Baddiel is planning a “disrespectful celebration” of his family, especially “sweary” Grandpa Colin

David Baddiel’s latest book for children shares themes with his live work, principally his father’s dementia. The show is somewhere between standup, storytelling and a very weird TED talk, he tells Janet Christie Portrait by Debra Hurford Brown

Writer, stand-up, broadcaster, David Baddiel isn’t usually stuck for words but for once he’s struggling.

“Those things that roll out that you blow at parties. Unrolly blower things.” Party blowers? “One of those, to give a party vibe.” Baddiel has been posing, with party blower, for pictures to publicise his fifth children’s book Birthday Boy ,in which 11-year-old Sam has his wish to celebrate his birthday every day granted.

“Both of my children have wished this, and of course Roy Wood of Wizzard had the same sentiment about Christmas, so I thought I’d give it a go,” says Baddiel who is father to Ezra, 12, and Dolly, 16, his children with comedian, writer and producer Morwenna Banks.

“All of my children’s books are attempts to tap into what I believe to be children’s, and to some extent human beings’, fantasies. My first book, The Parent Agency ,abouta world in which children can choose their own parents, came about when my son said, ‘why doesn’t Harry Potter just run away from the Dursleys and find better parents?’ After that I decided all my children’s books should be wish fulfilment in different ways. I act out the wish, and then things go wrong.”

What Baddiel calls his “weird upbringing” began in May 1964 in New York state where his dad was working before the family moved back to the UK and he was brought up in North London with his two brothers. Cambridge and the Footlights led to a stand-up career as well as writing for Rory Bremner and Spitting Image before he teamed up with Rob Newman in The Mary Whitehouse Experience, then Frank Skinner in the Nineties, their laddish humour proving a massive hit with five seasons of Fantasy Football League and the unscripted Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned. He’s appeared on various comedy panel shows, hosted Radio 4’s Don’t Make Me Laugh, and had a hit with his 2010 film turned musical, The Infidel, starring Omid Djalili as a Muslim who discovers he is in fact Jewish, managing to both delight and offend, just the way Baddiel likes it.

Now, following on from his 2013 stage show Fame: Not the Musical, an exploration of celebrity, he’s touring My Family: Not the Sitcom, a “disrespectful celebration” of his family, affairs, dementia, warts and all. He’s also currently getting to grips with tricky subjects from the Kardashians to hacking on Radio 4 with David Baddiel Tries to Understand.

Alongside comedy, he’s been writing books for 20 years, and as well as his four novels for adults, his children’s books have racked up joint sales of more than half a million and bagged him a LOLLIES children’s writing award.

“I wasn’t thinking about becoming a children’s writer,” he says. “I just have an idea and if it sounds like a kids’ book I’ll write a kids’ book. If it’s a film or a play, I’ll write that. When I first started, stand-up comedians writing novels was thought of as a great encroachment on the art form and people got very angsty. But comedians are storytellers so it’s really a hop, skip and a jump.”

Baddiel, with his anarchic comic style, has made a huge success of children’s books, so much so that he’s jostling David Walliams, Spot the Dog and various tigers and unicorns on the websites and bookshelves.