BBC removes Room On The Broom film featuring David Walliams

Detailed summary

Earlier in the week the BBC said it was carrying out a review of ‘all material’ featuring and written by Walliams on its platforms.

The BBC has removed the 2012 film adaptation of Julia Donaldson’s children’s book Room On The Broom featuring David Walliams.

Walliams, a best-selling author and former Britain’s Got Talent judge, 55, was named as part of an alleged sexual misconduct investigation by The Guardian and ITV News on Tuesday.

One woman described her alleged encounter with Walliams when she was 15 as “sexual assault”, while multiple women accused him of “grooming” them when they were teenagers. Walliams denies any wrongdoing.

On Friday, the Metropolitan Police said it had received a number of non-recent “serious” sex offence allegations against him “in recent days”.

Earlier in the week, the BBC said it was carrying out a review of “all material” featuring and written by Walliams on its platforms and was in the process of “removing” some.

One such show to be removed is the animated adaptation of Room On The Broom, in which Walliams voices a frog alongside Gillian Anderson as the witch and Simon Pegg as the narrator.

His character has just three lines in the 30-minute film, along with some “ribbits”.

In one line, his character says: “I am a frog, as clean as can be. Is there room on the broom for a frog like me?”

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.”

Opening of the article, excerpted from Evening Standard. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.