The BBC has removed the 2012 animated film adaptation of Julia Donaldson’s children’s book Room On The Broom featuring David Walliams from BBC iPlayer following sexual misconduct allegations against the actor and comedian.
Walliams, 55, voiced the character of a frog in the 30-minute animated film. The adaptation features a voice cast including Gillian Anderson as the witch and Simon Pegg as the narrator. Walliams has three lines of dialogue alongside sighs and ribbits.
The removal follows an investigation published on Tuesday by The Guardian and ITV News. Multiple women accused Walliams of grooming them when they were teenagers. Another described an encounter when she was 15 as sexual assault. Walliams denies all allegations.
The Metropolitan Police said that it received a number of non-recent serious sex offence allegations involving a man now in his 50s in recent days. Specialist officers are supporting those who have come forward.
The BBC announced it was reviewing all material featuring and written by Walliams on its platforms. A BBC spokesperson said:
These are serious allegations. As such, the BBC is looking carefully at all material featuring and written by David Walliams on our platforms. We are in the process of removing some programmes, including Little Britain, whilst this review is under way.
BBC spokesperson
Other BBC programmes unavailable on iPlayer include the sketch comedy series Little Britain, which ran from 2003 until 2006. Come Fly With Me aired for one season in 2010. A 2020 episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featuring Walliams is gone. Adaptations of his children’s books Gangsta Granny and Billionaire Boy are also removed.
Channel 4 removed episodes of 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown and the 2021 special Chitty Flies Again. Sky removed Walliams work from its platform. Sky dropped distribution of the upcoming film Fing!, based on his 2019 children’s book.
The allegations made against David Walliams are extremely serious. We have notified the producers of the film of our intention to exit our position as the UK and Ireland licensee of Fing! We have already removed content which features him from our platforms.
Sky spokesperson
Angel Studios confirmed it would still release Fing! in the US. A cameo featuring Walliams would be removed. He would not participate in promotion. Walliams was previously dropped by his publisher HarperCollins last year. His literary agency, The Independent Talent Group, also dropped him following allegations regarding his time as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent from 2012 to 2022.
Walliams denied being a sexual predator in a letter understood to have been sent several months ago to journalists working on the investigations. He wrote:
I realise I did not always take people’s feelings properly into account. That is something I regret.
David Walliams
And whilst a power imbalance is inevitable when one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something that I never did.
David Walliams