Children are intrigued by the FORBIDDEN
His books may be monstrous, but there’s always a grain of truth, says David Walliams – and writing them is far more personal than comedy...
Aboy in a dress started it all. He was 11 and he came to see a theatre production of the TV show Little Britain wearing a dress, inspired by David Walliams’s transvestite character Emily. The boy then wrote to David to tell him how he’d even gone to school in his dress on a non-uniform day and enclosed a picture.
It got David thinking. He’d worn dresses as a young boy – his big sister liked to put him in her old clothes – and at school he loved performing but was the only boy to take on female roles. ‘It felt like such a brave thing to do,’ David recalled of that boy when we discussed the filming of a BBC adaptation of his first children’s book, The Boy In The Dress, some years later. ‘So I decided to write about it, and because he was a child it was a children’s book. It offered me the chance to think about something more personal – with comedy you don’t have much time for emotion. I created this happy ending – he made things better for everyone by being himself. I realised there were so many possibilities, but I didn’t think I’d still be writing children’s books all these years later.’
He may be a judge on Britain’s Got Talent and he still acts, but it’s his books that David, 49, is increasingly best known for. The Boy In The Dress came out in 2008 and has been followed by 14 more children’s novels including Mr Stink, Ratburger and Billionaire Boy, which have sold more than 35 million copies globally.
At more than £100m, his book earnings outweigh his showbusiness income and when WH Smith listed its most popular children’s books of 2020, three of his were in the top 10, beating even JK Rowling. ‘I’d never written a story before,’ he recalled of that first book. ‘But I wrote one, then the second, and as I enjoyed the process I just carried on.’
His output is prodigious, publishing at least two books a year, including picture books for younger children and short story collections. Seven novels have been adapted for TV – which he also produces and stars in – while five have been turned into stage shows. Some stories are plain silly featuring things like earth-shattering farts, but parents like them because they explore difference and touch on sensitive subjects such as bullying, dementia and death. Reluctant readers are attracted because they’re funny, rebellious and often rude.
He said he draws inspiration from all around, from news stories to his own family. Gangsta Granny, which follows a suburban granny who plots to steal the crown jewels, was inspired by his own grandmother. ‘I used to find it boring to go round there on a Friday night. It wasn’t until I asked about her life – she’d lived in London during the Blitz – that I realised it had been incredible.’
Grandpa’s Great Escape, in which a man with dementia thinks he’s back in his Spitfire, was partly inspired by a news story about a man who’d escaped from an old people’s home to join his old comrades at a reunion. Mr Stink, about a homeless aristocrat saved by a girl which was brought to the screen with Hugh Bonneville in 2012, was inspired by Harold Pinter and Michael Gambon. ‘There’s a line in Pinter’s play The Caretaker when someone tells him, “You stink”, and he replies, “I’ll stink you!” I was constantly thinking about that when I was writing. I’d seen Michael Gambon playing the part and it had a huge effect on me.
‘Each of the stories has to have a grain of truth, however monstrous they seem. I do get a lot of comedy out of bodily functions but I’m not crude for the sake of it. Children are intrigued by things that are a bit forbidden. I never want to talk down to them. I want to bring in important themes. Mr Stink, for example, is about how you treat people who are less fortunate than you.’
David’s work is often compared to that of his literary hero Roald Dahl. He even used the same illustrator – Quentin
WHEN I ASKED MY GRANNY ABOUT HER LIFE I REALISED IT HAD BEEN INCREDIBLE
Blake – until the ageing cartoonist couldn’t keep up with demand. But while Dahl hated his books being adapted, David works with a scriptwriter to create his adaptations – the latest is Bad Dad, which is being turned into a Netflix film.
David has spent a previous World Book Day travelling around the country visiting schools in a helicopter, and costumes for children who want to dress up as characters from his books for the event are bestsellers. This year will, inevitably, be a little different but David’s doing an online assembly, hosted by Blue Peter’s Lindsey Russell. ‘Kids send me pictures of themselves dressed up for World Book Day and I love that so many boys put dresses on,’ he told me. ‘We’ve gone full circle.
Nicole Lampert David’s ‘Amaaaaazing Assembly’ for World Book Day is on Tuesday, recommended for years 3-6. Register at worldofdavidwalliams.com.