BBC removes Room On The Broom film featuring David Walliams

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.”

Walliams rose to fame working alongside Matt Lucas on the BBC sketch comedy series Little Britain, which ran from 2003 until 2006.

They then created and starred in Come Fly With Me, which aired on the BBC for one season in 2010.

Both shows are currently unavailable on iPlayer, as is a 2020 episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featuring Walliams.

Adaptations of his best-selling children’s books including Gangsta Granny and Billionaire Boy are also unavailable are on the service.

Other broadcasters have also removed programming featuring Walliams from their streaming services.

Channel 4 has taken down episodes of 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown and the 2021 special Chitty Flies Again with Walliams.

Sky also removed Walliams’ work from its platform and dropped the distribution of the upcoming film Fing! based on his 2019 children’s book.

In a statement, a Sky spokesperson said: “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.”

Angel Studios confirmed it would still release the film in the US, but a cameo featuring Walliams would be removed and he would not take part in its promotion.

Walliams has not yet responded to Tuesday’s reports in The Guardian or ITV News.

But in a letter understood to have been sent several months ago to journalists working on the investigations, he denied being a “sexual predator”.

Walliams said he recognised he “behaved thoughtlessly” at times, and regretted not taking people’s feelings “properly into account”, but insisted he had not broken the law.

The ITV and The Guardian reports about Walliams followed his unsuccessful attempts to seek an injunction to prevent the media revealing his identity – with his lawyers arguing there was a risk he would take his own life after two previous suicide attempts.

Several sources alleged inappropriate behaviour towards women at the prime-time show BGT, where Walliams served as a judge from 2012 to 2022, and at his publisher HarperCollins, which dropped him last year.

The allegations also led to Walliams also being dropped by his literary agency, Independent Talent Group.

The Press Association has contacted the BBC and representatives for Julia Donaldson for comment.