Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
MR & MRS WRITE!
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...
The Fletcher household is built on books, pretty much. Giovanna Fletcher may be one of the most famous mums in Britain now thanks to her parenting podcast which has attracted big-name interviewees including the Duchess of Cambridge, but the Cbeebies presenter first made her name as a writer of romantic novels including You’re The
One That I Want and Dream A Little Dream. Her husband, Mcfly musician Tom, has recently moved into publishing too with a string of children’s books, and he’s one of this year’s World Book Day authors. He’ll be leading online picture-book classes for children with his latest, There’s A Wolf In Your Book, which will be on offer for £1.
In the last few years they’ve combined forces too to write a dystopian trilogy for teenagers called Eve Of Man. Their marriage survived the process, just. ‘I did tell our publishers, “Welcome to our divorce” when we started writing together,’ admits Giovanna, 36.
They have three children – Buzz, six, Buddy, five, and Max, two – who are surely the stars of World Book Day at their school or nursery? Giovanna laughs. ‘The reality is that when Buzz was at nursery it passed us by completely. Tom was actually a World Book Day author that year, but we hadn’t realised Buzz’s nursery was doing it so we sent him in without a costume. He didn’t care – he was two – but we felt absolutely mortified...’
The rise and rise of this power couple has been extraordinary, with Giovanna winning last year’s I’m A Celebrity..., to the delight of busy mums everywhere. She might now be a recognisable face on TV but books were her first love. ‘I was Matilda, basically,’ she says. ‘I always had my nose in a book. I’d read under the bed covers.’ Her commute from Essex into central London for stage school (where she met Tom) gave her an hour of reading time. ‘It developed the habit,’ she says. ‘I think it’s significant that I had that space. I’d devour books.’
She started her career with an internship at Heat magazine doing book reviews, and a meeting with crime novelist Dorothy Koomson convinced her to give writing a whirl herself. ‘I remember thinking, “Why not me?”’ The result was her first bestseller, the sweet romance Billy And Me, published in 2010. Four more followed.
But her marriage to Tom in 2012 put her in the public spotlight too, and after having Buzz she started blogging about motherhood. In 2017 she brought out the non-fiction book Happy Mum, Happy Baby and then started her podcast, on which she chats with other highprofile mums. When the Duchess of Cambridge was a guest she was asked if she suffered ‘mum guilt’, to which she replied, ‘Anyone who doesn’t as a mother is actually lying! Yep – all the time...’
Her latest book, Letters On Motherhood, came out last year and she and Tom both have their own books out later this year, as well as another joint one. Meanwhile, their sons are being encouraged to read, read and read some more. ‘In our house books are about family time,’ says Giovanna. ‘If it’s oneon-one reading it’s a case of getting under the covers and having asn uggle. It’s about sharing something really special. Books are about giving them the world.’
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 £100 million, 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 ten, 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 – Sir Quentin 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.’
WHENIASKED MY GRANNY ABOUT HER LIFE I REALISED IT HAD BEEN INCREDIBLE
David’s ‘Amaaaaazing Assembly’ for World Book Day is on Tuesday, recommended for years 3-6. Schools and households can register at worldofdavidwalliams.com.
THE WITCHES AMAZON/SKY, AVAILABLE NOW
Resplendent in red lipstick and a pointy black hat, Anne Hathaway turns in a show-stealing performance as the Grand High Witch (right), who is on a collision course with an orphaned youngster and his grandmother. Based on Roald Dahl’s 1983 children’s novel, the film also stars Stanley Tucci as hotel manager Mr Stringer. You can pay to watch it now on Amazon and Sky, but from Friday it’s free to Sky Cinema and NOW TV subscribers.
THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY DISNEY+, WINTER
Four gifted young orphans are recruited by the eccentric Mr Benedict and sent undercover as spies to the so-called Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened in order to foil a plot that could threaten the world. The book the series is based on was written by Trenton Lee Stewart in 2007.
H IS FOR HAPPINESS SKY AND AMAZON, 29 MARCH
Call The Midwife’s Miriam Margolyes plays teacher Miss Bamford in this feelgood drama about 12-year-old Candice (Daisy Axon), who’s inspired by quirky new schoolmate Douglas (Wesley Patten, left with Daisy) to mend her broken family. The film is based on Barry Jonsberg’s novel My Life As An Alphabet.
THE LARKINS ITV, WINTER
A heartwarming family drama set in the late 1950s, with Bradley Walsh filling Sir David Jason’s shoes by taking on the role of Pop Larkin. Sir David played the larger-than-life character in The Darling Buds Of May, based on HE Bates’s novel of the same name, to great acclaim on ITV 30 years ago, with Catherine Zeta-jones as his daughter
Mariette.
TINY PRETTY THINGS NETFLIX, AVAILABLE NOW
Imagine TV series Fame transported to a Chicago ballet academy, a world of tutus and tantrums where the dancers (left) compete for success. Based on a novel by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton, the show follows the careers of potential prima ballerinas, including Neveah Stroyer who bagged an academy place after a star pupil fell from a roof.
THE SECRET GARDEN
SKY AND NOW TV,
AVAILABLE NOW
The latest adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel shifts the period setting from the turn of the century to 1947. Colin Firth plays grumpy Uncle Archibald, with Julie Walters as housekeeper Mrs Medlock.
ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL CHANNEL 5, WINTER
The new adaptation of Alf Wight’s James Herriot vet novels proved a hit last year, and more episodes are in the pipeline. Nicholas Ralph plays Herriot (above, centre), with Sam West as his gruff but kindhearted colleague Siegfried Farnon (second left).
MYNAME IS LEON BBC1, AUTUMN
In this tearjerker, nine-year-old boy Leon is separated from his younger brother when they go into foster care after their mother has a breakdown – but he vows to bring his family back together. Set in the 1980s, the one-off film is being brought to TV by Sir Lenny Henry, adapted from Kit de Waal’s novel of the same name.
YES DAY
NETFLIX, 12MARCH Fed up with saying no to the children and keen to prove they can be fun, Allison and Carlos (right, with family) decide to give them the ultimate treat – a Yes Day! Leaving the windows open as the car goes into the car wash is a foretaste of what’s to come. The film, starring Jennifer Garner, is based on the book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and
Tom Lichtenheld.
THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY NETFLIX, AVAILABLE NOW
To their enormous surprise, 43 women around the world give birth simultaneously, having shown no signs of pregnancy. Seven of the children are adopted by eccentric billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves and turned into a superhero team he calls The Umbrella Academy. Based on the comic books by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, this TV adaptation over two series stars Robert Sheehan as Klaus Hargreeves (near left), who can talk to the dead, and Tom Hopper as fellow academy member Luther Hargreeves (in the green coat), an astronaut with super strength.
MOXIE
NETFLIX, WEDNESDAY Frustrated by the sexist attitudes running rampant at her US high school, shy 16-year-old Vivian (Hadley Robinson, left) draws on her mother’s rebellious past to anonymously publish a magazine, Moxie!, that sparks a coming-of-rage revolution among her fellow students. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son Patrick plays pupil Mitchell Wilson, one of the chief offenders, in this movie adapted from Jennifer Mathieu’s 2017 novel of the same name.