BBC adaptation of David Walliams’ novel Billionaire Boy, with scenes shot in Sheffield, unavailable on iPlayer
The BBC is carrying out a review of “all material” featuring and written by Walliams on its platforms
A BBC adaptation of a David Walliams novel, which featured scenes filmed in Sheffield, is unavailable on iPlayer.
The BBC is carrying out a review of “all material” featuring and written by Walliams on its platforms and has removed a number of them.
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.
On Friday, the Metropolitan Police said it had received a number of non-recent “serious” sex offence allegations against him “in recent days”.
Walliams denies any wrongdoing.
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.
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.”
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.
Heeley Pool was chosen as one of the locations for the filming of Billionaire Boy, an hour-long BBC special which featured an all-star cast including Catherine Tate, John Thomson and Warwick Davies, as well as an appearance from Walliams himself.
The show is the story of Len, who makes a billion pounds from inventing a new toilet roll, and his 12-year-old son Joe who has everything that money can buy, except a good friend.
Heeley Pool was used for scenes featuring the child actor playing Joe, with the youngster being filmed around the pool area.
It aired for the first time on New Year’s Day 2016.