Little Britain stuff

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Police called in over obsessed brunette who stalked Little Britain star David Walliams for THREE years
By COLIN FERNANDEZ and ANDREW LEVY
12th April 2008

A female fan obsessed with David Walliams is being investigated by police for stalking the Little Britain star. Sarah Bartholomew, a 29-year-old veterinary nurse, has spent the last three years bombarding him with erotic verse, photographing him secretly in his house and showering him with gifts.

In one explicit poem sent to Walliams, the brunette wrote: "I'd rip off your pants in a sexual frenzy - you can have me how you want." Other unsolicited presents to the comedian included a cuddly donkey, a Doctor Who book about Daleks, and a set of Are You Being Served? DVDs signed by John Inman.

The book Inside Little Britain - co-written by Walliams, his comic partner Matt Lucas and journalist Boyd Hilton - describes other attempts by her to win his heart including a 12-page poem "written in various different colours of ink over a period of weeks". "It relentlessly refers to the sexual feelings she has for David," the book adds. It describes how he has "also started receiving hand-delivered correspondence at his house from the woman who has been sending him lengthy hardcore letters, describing in rhyming couplets the sexual things she wants to do to him". Describing her level of devotion as "a bit scary", the book goes on: "In the end, he's had to inform the police, simply because she now knows where he lives and does seem to be worryingly obsessive."

Last year Miss Bartholomew's attention became so alarming that the BBC warned her to stop harassing Walliams and banned her from their TV studios. After an attempt to break in to the star's dressing room, Walliams was left hiding in a private room before security guards escorted Miss Bartholomew off the premises. But despite repeated letters from Walliams's solicitors, Hamlins, to keep away from from him, she continues her obsessive stalking campaign. His advisers have now asked police to prosecute the fan. His publicist, Moira Bellas, told the Daily Mail: "It's a police matter now."

But Miss Bartholomew remains defiant. She said: "I have heard from his solicitors asking me to stop seeing him. The first one was quite a while ago, maybe a couple of years. Every time I've got something requesting me to keep my distance from David then restraining orders and injunctions come to mind, but it hasn't happened yet so I'm not thinking about it."

"The last time I actually saw him was very recently. It was in London at his house. I have seen him hundreds of times, probably thousands. I can't see him at the BBC studios any more because I've been banned but I go to places like the ITV studios, the Baftas and the Pride of Britain awards. When he was on tour, which went on for months, I more or less followed him the length and breadth of Britain. I spend thousands each year but you can't put a price on some things."

Miss Bartholomew, who lives alone in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, missed the first TV series of Little Britain. Her obsession began when she went to the live recording of an episode from the second series after hearing about the programme from friends, and managed to speak to Walliams. "The first moment that I saw him it was face to face, talking in person and I was infatuated," she said. "He was lovely. I was taken by his character, as well the fact he is scrumptious in general."

She blushed as she admitted sending gifts, including explicit letters, underwear and the DVDs of Are You Being Served? "I heard that David was a big fan so I wanted to get him a special present," she said. Miss Bartholomew, who has two elder sisters, revealed she found it distressing hearing about Walliams's well-publicised sexual conquests. "It's difficult reading about his exploits with other women in the newspapers," she said. "It's upsetting to see the man you're in love with being with other people." She said she has had a boyfriend since becoming a fan of Little Britain but didn't have one at the moment. "I guess I do compare people to David and no one comes up to scratch."

A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed the force was aware of the harassment allegation.

UPDATE:

Walliams fan charged

Bartholomew is due to appear at Highbury Corner magistrates court in North London on April 29 on two counts of harassment.

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Pretty sad, but you only have to look at some fan sites to realise that she's probably one of the less mental ones!

[pirtybirdy]

Yeah, true. She needs help. A little psychiatric help should put her straight. She needs to see it's not healthy.

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The 70% straight man - Profile: David Walliams
20/04/2008
Scotland On Sunday

IT was 2003 and Britain had just got littler. TV comedy was in the doldrums with pilot after pilot left to languish in what telly people euphemistically call "development". Little Britain came along in the nick of time. And no offence to Matt Lucas – who may well be the more naturally funny of the show's two performers – but the arrival of David Walliams would also prove a godsend to the world of showbiz celebrity.

Little Britain seems to have been around forever, and that has a lot to do with its old-fashioned humour – as if its stars took the wrong turning down a BBC corridor and ended up in Dick Emery's old props cupboard. But while the show's roots are reassuringly familiar, the kind of celebrity Walliams has become is simply without precedent. It's as if he's been invented specifically for this so-called metrosexual age. If Heat, the Sun's Bizarre column and the gay magazine Attitude were feeling especially perky after a long liquid lunch, they might try to persuade you they'd assembled him from scratch.

What colour was Britain, pre-Walliams? Oh grey, definitely. (Wasn't there still rationing?) And what colour is it now? Pink. In 2005, Walliams was named as the co-respondent in a divorce case and his unhumble abode was described thus: "He had a pink sofa, a pink coffee table, a pink TV stand." The woman, who had met the star at a party for Agent Provocateur and omitted to mention she was married, then added superfluously: "The place looked like it belonged to Barbie."

But hang on, isn't the 36-year-old Walliams gay? Confusion is understandable. Happy/sad. Irritable/ineffably polite. Comedian/straight actor. The most frivolous man in London/Channel-swimming charity hero. Walliams dodges attempts to put him in a box with a clearly marked label; he likes to keep everyone guessing. Which way will he jump next? Alongside Lucas, he's transferring Little Britain to Big America, with all the risks that implies. You sense that as long as he remains here, the BBC will let him do anything – although his last "straight" performance, as Frankie Howerd, was criticised as an impersonation routine and little more.

He has recently lost his father – glimpsed on screen cheering him home from his epic Channel swim – and says he would like a family of his own one day. Perhaps it's this desire for a child that has prompted his latest manifestation, as an author: last week it was announced he has been contracted to write a children's book about a boy who likes to wear a dress – perhaps inspired by the Little Britain sketch in which Walliams insists: "I'm a lay-dee!" Illustrated by Quentin Blake, it will be published in October.

The scandal sheets probably won't want Walliams to rush to any decisions about his future – because they're having so much fun with him just as he is. It would be easier to name the women he's not supposed to have dated/snogged/shared a candlelit supper with. But here are some he reportedly has: Kylie Minogue, Kate Moss, Geri Halliwell, Patsy Kensit, Lisa Snowdon, Abi Titmuss, Courtney Love, Emily Scott, Erin O'Connor, Aimee Osbourne, Suranne Jones, Jayne Middlemiss and – phew – Martine McCutcheon. At one point, his almost daily appearances in the gossip columns were checked by a Gay-O-Meter. The likes of Lisa Snowdon on his arm would give him a hetero rating, while gay icon Kylie would cause the dial to swing the other way.

He gives good quotes, such as: "I'm 70% straight." As a boy, he was "the kind who got bullied and loved the attention of it". He claims never to have drunk a pint of beer or supported a football team. "Your perception is that I'm out with Dale Winton all the time," he says tetchily. (No it's not: it's that he's out with Natalie Imbruglia and Lisa Moorish and Denise Van Outen all the time).

And best of all, this is Walliams on David Beckham, possibly his own rival as Britain's No 1 metrosexual: "Beckham – an icon of style? He's just a man who gets a lot of new clothes. Style is John Lydon or Quentin Crisp. André 3000 in plus fours and an afro. David Bowie in a canary-yellow suit. Gilbert and George. Pet Shop Boys as the City gent and his rent boy. Tom Wolfe in a crisp white poplin shirt. That's style. Not opening parcels from Dolce & Gabbana."

Mee-oww! Not that Walliams is immune to big-name purchases and conspicuous consumption – he bought Supernova Heights, the former home of Oasis star Noel Gallagher, and installed a plum-coloured, walk-in wardrobe as part of a complete makeover.

It was in 1990 that Walliams first encountered Lucas. But back in their National Youth Theatre days, he only had one guise and little confidence in it. He admits he was "a bit piqued" when he found out that Lucas impersonated Jimmy Savile; he desperately wanted to be the only mimic in the troupe (his speciality was Frankie Howerd).

Howerd has been something of a constant in his life. Aged 14, he was doing his impression in school productions of Shakespeare without realising it. Howerd, of course, was tortured by his homosexuality, and a 39-year relationship with his manager was only revealed after his death in 1992.

Walliams was brought up in Surrey, the son of a transport engineer and a teacher, and educated at Reigate Grammar School (other famous old boys: Norman Cook, AKA Fat Boy Slim', and Ray Mears). In the playground, Walliams' effeminate manner prompted taunts of "Daphne". His sister used to dress him in girls' clothes. Even his father called him "Davinia" when he wore a silk dressing-gown that was a present from Japan. Yet despite these curiosities he unfailingly describes his childhood as happy. And, of course, great preparation for playing rubbish transvestites in Little Britain.

The show has immortalised its stars. In The Apprentice right now, the short, fat, contestant is nicknamed "Matt Lucas", while the tall, posh, sinister, camp one is known as "David Walliams". Yet Walliams, in particular, does not look like he wants to be defined by a sketch show in which he plays 57 varieties of diminutive Britons, many of them very camp indeed.

Perhaps his most remarkable sideline is his swimming. In 2006, Walliams swam the English Channel for Comic Relief in 10 and a half hours – one of the 50 fastest swims ever. "Swimming's the only sport I've ever been vaguely good at," he said, after battling jellyfish and raising hundreds of thousands of pounds.

What next? It could be the first big failure; it could be the Newsnight anchorman job. Anything seems more likely than a definitive portrait of who David Walliams really
is.

You've been Googled

• His surname is Williams, but he changed it to Walliams for the actors' union Equity because the organisation already had a David Williams on its books.

• Walliams and Matt Lucas, right, first performed together at a comedy club set up by Dominik Diamond and in 1995 took their Sir Bernard Chumley And Friends show to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. "Relentless scabrosity," opined one critic.

• In 2005, a former executive at a waste management company was awarded £35,345 by a tribunal after suffering homophobic taunts – the worst of which was being called "Sebastian" after Walliams' lovelorn PM's aide in Little Britain.

• Walliams appeared alongside Lucas in the video of the Fat Les song 'Vindaloo', the unofficial anthem for the England national football team at the 1998 World Cup.

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Walliams fan admits stalking

An obsessed fan has admitted in court to harassing David Walliams. Former veterinary nurse Sarah Bartholomew, 29, was told she caused the Little Britain star ‘pain and distress’ by bombarding him with erotic poems, emails and letters. But she was told she would not be going to jail for the four-year stalking campaign.

Crown Prosecution Service solicitor Julius Efemini told Highbury Magistrates Court in North London: ‘ Miss Bartholomew has somehow become obsessed with Mr Walliams. She has repeatedly sent him a large number of emails of letters and poems. These emails were overtly sexual. Towards the tail end of it, it would seem the tone of these letters and emails changed. She sent an email to [Walliams’s agent Carl] Hill saying, “David knows what's coming to him.” She also said, “A big mistake had been made”.’

In each correspondence, Bartholomew clearly identified herself, as she believed she was entitled to write the letters. District Judge Ian Baker said he would sentence Bartholomew on Friday, following a pre-sentence report. But he said: ‘You are certainly not going to prison for this conduct, I can assure you of that. But the court is bound to consider a community penalty.’

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The secret's out... Little Britain US characters revealed

Some of the new characters in the US version of Little Britain have been revealed. A copy of the script now being made for the HBO network has been leaked to the press, and it includes such new grotesques as spoiled wannabe child star Ellie Grace, who is apparently based on a young Britney Spears, and her mother. In another scene, David Walliams plays Madonna’s personal assistant, fulfilling her outrageous demands. ‘Sometimes during the afternoon Madonna may wish to adopt a black baby,’ he says in one sketch. ‘So if you can arrange for a box of black babies to be flown in daily at 3pm…’

Other new characters include an obsessive-compulsive recluse based on Howard Hughes, a stern dog trainer based on Barbara Woodhouse, and a wholesome all-American couple with a secret life. Returning characters include Vicky Pollard, Lou and Andy, gay Prime Ministerial aide Sebastian, Fat Fighter Marjorie Dawes, and Daffyd, who is ‘the only gay on the campus’ as he is studying at an American university.

Photographers have also caught the couple filming a scene in North Carolina in which Walliams’s ‘rubbish transvestite’ Emily Howard is arrested by an overweight cop, played by Matt Lucas. Although tailored for the US market, the six new episodes are likely to be screened on the BBC, too.

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It all sounds pretty good, apart from the Madonna gag - surely they wouldn't be so hack?

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Little Britain star Matt Lucas splits from 'husband'
By Jody Thompson,
Mirror.co.uk
18/06/2008

Little Britain star Matt Lucas and his partner have had an "amicable" split just 18 months after getting 'married' in a lavish civil partnership ceremony. Lucas and long-term boyfriend Kevin McGee's wedding was followed by a glitzy pantomime-themed reception at the 17th-century Whitehall Banqueting Hall in December 2006.

A statement from their lawyers said: "It is with sadness that Matt and Kevin announce that their relationship has come to an end...They ask the press to respect their privacy at this time and to exercise restraint in any reporting of this matter."

The pair had been together for three years and were engaged for seven months before their civil ceremony. At the star-studded reception Lucas, 34, dressed up as Aladdin and TV producer McGee went as Prince Charming. Sadly, there was no fairy-tale ending.

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David Walliams loves Big Britton
By SARA NATHAN

LITTLE Britain star David Walliams has revealed his fantasy laydee — curvy Fern Britton. David, who spends much of his time in a dress (for filming purposes, of course), is a big fan of This Morning host Fern. Fern, 51, has been at the centre of a huge row after being forced to admit she shed five stone by having a gastric band fitted. She is still a size 16 and David smirks: “I love Fern, I think she may be my all-time fantasy — a woman of size with something to hold on to.”

When I point out that none of the women David has dated have been large in the slightest, he tut-tuts: “Yes, but none of them have been tiny things. They’ve all had boobs and curves, which is just how I like them.”

I caught up with David and co-star Matt Lucas in Los Angeles after the lads spent six months filming the US version of Little Britain — and was given exclusive back-stage access. Matt, 34, added his two pennies’ worth about Ms Britton, saying: “I love Fern. Weight is a difficult issue, particularly in this business.”

Ladies’ man David, 36, has recently been back to his womanising best — he went out for dinner with Britain’s Next Top Model finalist Stefanie Wilson, 22, earlier this week. And it looks like Hollywood has had some influence on Matt — who reveals he has shed 20 pounds.

Matt — who plays fat-fighter Marjorie Dawes in the TV hit — orders Special K and fruit as we enjoy breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He confesses: “I’m never going to be slim, but it got to the point where I couldn’t get my favourite suits on and I thought ‘I have to do something about this’.”

The lads have been working like crazy on the set of the HBO show, which is due to be shown in the US in September, and will hopefully be screened in the UK. They have taken their favourite characters Stateside — including Vicky Pollard, sent to Brat Camp after burning down Disneyland, no less. And we are allowed to give you just a snippet of the new characters, including a schizophrenic Barbara Woodhouse-style dog-loving laydee, who hears voices from her cocker spaniel.

Meanwhile, the character Sebastian is now the PM — and desperately trying it on with the new US President, who looks an awful lot like a Democratic candidate. Bubbles is back (you don’t want to know what happens when she comes a cropper with some seaweed), plus Computer Says No Carol, now working in a hospital. Her cough could spread MRSA, I reckon.

David’s dad Peter died just before Christmas and the star says he has been on the phone to his beloved mum Kathleen every day. But he added: “She didn’t come out to America, because we’re working so hard and I didn’t want her sitting alone in a hotel every day.”

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David Walliams and Matt Lucas as American jocks Tom and Mark

Misguided beauty pageant hopeful Ellie-Grace and her pushy mother

Sweet American teen Conor and his grandmother Mildred

Bing Gordyn, the eighth astronaut on the moon, is Lucas' favourite new character
Introducing Little Britain's new crop of outrageous characters
23rd July 2008

Little Britain stars David Walliams and Matt Lucas have unveiled a host of new characters in a bid to conquer America. The comedy duo's six-part series, Little Britain USA, will see the return of some of familiar faces, including Vicky Pollard, as well as fresh creations. The show, which will air on HBO in September, stars muscle-clad Tom and Mark, characters described by Walliams as 'possibly the most outrageous we've ever done'.

'Tom and Mark'hey are a take on American jocks, who frolicked naked in the gym while boasting about their latest female conquests. But the tanned and buff double act have, er, surprise packages in store which will no doubt shock viewers. Lucas also frocks up to play Ellie-Grace, a misguided child beauty pageant hopeful who is spurred on by her pushy mother, played by cross-dressing Walliams. Other characters include Conor and Mildred, an American boy from the Deep South and his grandmother, and Bing Gordyn, the eighth man on the moon.

Bing, Lucas explains, is bitter 'because all his glories are behind him and he's obsessed about the lack of recognition he gets compared to the other astronauts. He's my favourite new character and David plays him brilliantly.'

Friends star David Schwimmer directs some episodes, while US actress Rosie O'Donnell makes a guest appearance. Walliams and Lucas say they took America's approach to comedy into account, but it remains to be seen if their distinct brand of humour will translate Stateside.

Lucas said last week: 'We talked about American comedy being a little cooler and Britain being a bit sadder.' Added Walliams: 'I think we make ourselves look maybe stupid in Britain a little bit more than being cool. 'But also we're not afraid to dress as women which is a little bit rarer in American comedy.'

Little Britain USA will air on HBO in September and later in the year on the BBC.

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The misguided beauty pageant character sounds great - haha

[maycm]

"US actress" Rosie O'Donnell? You must be joking.

Some great characters here to be sure though - realy looking forward to this.

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Walliams stalker sectioned
'A sad but not bad' case
29/07/2008

David Walliams’s stalker has been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Sarah Bartholomew, 29, of Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, bombarded the Little Britain star with gifts and more than 1,000 pages of letters and e-mails over a four-year period. In one letter she told Walliams: ‘I have to have you at any cost’; in another she said she wanted to touch the comedian’s ‘perfect bare flesh.’

Sentencing Bartholomew at Highbury Magistrates Court, District Judge Adrian Turner said her actions had been ‘delusional’ but said she was a ‘sad but not bad case’. She will now remain at a psychiatric hospital until doctors decided she posed no threat to herself or anyone else.

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eh eh ehhhhhhh?

(I'll pray for forgiveness for that later)

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Clips of Little Britain US released

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GAY AND FATTY JOKES UPSET YANKS
DAILY STAR SUNDAY
Mike Parker

LITTLE Britain is set to spark a war in America over outrageous gay sex scenes in the TV show’s US spin-off series.

Camp creators Matt Lucas and David Walliams caused uproar among “pink” protest groups with a trailer featuring full-frontal nude shots in a men’s changing room. In the sketch, the comedy duo – made up to look like burly body-builders – simulate sex acts while chiding a wimpish onlooker for “being a fag”. And in another skit, actress and chat host Rosie O’Donnell is the butt of cruel lesbian and obesity jibes as the celebrity speaker at a spoof WeightWatchers’ meeting.

Openly gay Rosie was happy to be the first special guest on Little Britain USA, which launches on HBO on September 28. But the show, which will also be broadcast on the BBC this autumn, is already being condemned by humourless American gay rights groups. Despite the fact that Matt Lucas is openly gay, they claim the series is “grossly insulting” and are demanding the cable giant pulls the plug on such sketches.

“This is the most politically incorrect, offensive and obnoxious material ever seen in this country,” said West Hollywood Gay and Lesbian Alliance spokesman Irwin Blair. “We intend to protest in the strongest terms to HBO and urge members of the homosexual community to boycott this show.”

New York Gay Pride spokesman Gina Gallo said: “Even straight viewers are going to be repulsed if the trailers and pre-publicity are anything to go by. Audiences in Britain might be used to this grossly insulting material – but people here aren’t. I’m surprised that Rosie, a leading voice in the gay rights movement, would allow herself to become the target of such homophobic abuse. This just isn’t what passes for comedy here. It is highly insulting.”

Lucas, 34, and Walliams, 37, who are introducing new characters in Little Britain USA alongside their better known ones, are planning a big pre-launch Tinseltown party to celebrate their US show. A senior HBO source said yesterday: “We lead the way in edgy programming, although I guess some of the scenes are even more risqué than we are used to. We’ll be listening very carefully to any complaints but folks should understand that the best cutting-edge comedy plays off phobias and prejudices. Nobody is setting out to offend anyone here.”

The men’s dressing room sketch features two full minutes of total male nudity which would automatically stop it being shown on regular American TV networks. A spokesman for the Federal Communications Commission told the Daily Star Sunday: “From your descriptions, there is no way this would be allowed on one of the major networks. The public outcry would be enormous. But paid-for cable services are not within our remit.”

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You'd think this was just a lot of pointless nonsense if it were true, but it seems the complaints are completely false...

[pirtybirdy]

I haven't seen this thread in a long time. I can't wait to watch these new skits! Excellent!

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On holiday with 'Little Britain USA'
Sketch-comedy duo Matt Lucas and David Walliams are rubbing shoulders with their American cousins. Hey, why are they laughing so much?
By Lewis Beale,
LA Times
September 14, 2008

CAROLINA BEACH, N.C. -- MATT LUCAS and David Walliams discussed the concept of "world famous" fudge during a break from filming in this coastal city. Seems the stars of "Little Britain USA," an offshoot of their hit British TV series "Little Britain," had, before shooting started, spent some time soaking up Americana, in Branson, Mo. It was there that the duo attended one of those cleaner-than-the-freshly-driven-snow family shows the town is somewhat famous for, where the audience was told to traipse out to the refreshment stand and try their "world famous fudge."

This got Walliams thinking. "Well," he said, affecting one of those Middle American accents that made him sound as if he were talking through his sinuses, "I haven't heard of it in England. I'm not quite sure it's world famous. No fudge is world famous." "You don't travel for fudge," chimed in Lucas. Walliams, still in American mode: "There's some wonderful fudge in Branson, Mo. We should go there."

They snorted and giggled gleefully. Free-form absurdity is the Lucas-Walliams way of looking at the world. It's why HBO is taking a flier on a sketch- and character-driven series set to debut Sept. 28 that, despite its enormous fame in England, is barely known in this country, unless you've been up late watching BBC America or stumbled upon some of the bits on YouTube.

But that didn't deter Simon Fuller -- who brought " American Idol" to the States and is executive producer of "Little Britain USA" -- from pitching a U.S. version to HBO, because, he said, referencing " The Office," "Ali G" and other programs, "usually the best British comedy with that success does travel. But what swung it was when the HBO executives looked at the material, they felt the guys were stars, pedigreed comic actors."

"We followed the English format of the show, and I thought it was the state of the art," said Nancy Geller, HBO's senior vice president of entertainment. "We're always looking for these wonderful sketch shows, and these guys are the real deal; they are as talented as I've ever seen character-driven performers."

"Little Britain" began as a radio program, then morphed into a TV series and wildly successful stage show. The concept is simplicity itself -- it's a series of short comic riffs, usually less than three minutes long, populated by a rotating cast of stock characters. Think "Monty Python," except that it's all shot on film, which, said executive producer Larry Brezner, means it's "difficult to shoot, because each sketch is a mini-movie, and in a half-hour show you have 12 sketches."

Despite the show's British tone, HBO never thought of doing an Americanized version, à la "The Office." Which is where the idea of plopping some of the British characters onto American soil came into play.

"When we had our first meeting with HBO, I think we thought they'd like to make their own version of the show," said Walliams. "But they said, 'No, we want you to be in the show.' We hadn't really figured on doing that, and then we had to figure out how to do it."

Easy enough. Bring some of the characters here, then have them react to the local culture. Like today's shoot at the canary yellow, gloriously seedy Joy Lee Apartments on the Carolina coast -- where two of "Little Britain's" most famous characters, Lou and Andy, are taking in the sights. "Oh, look, Andy," says empathetic caretaker Lou as he maneuvers the wheelchair-bound Andy (who's faking the whole disabled thing) around the tiny pool, "they have a pool here, you can have a swim in there later." "Naw," says the blubbery Andy in disgust, arguing that he's sure people pee in it.

Taking off from what Walliams and Lucas saw in the U.S., they also wrote sketches with new American characters. Like the North Carolina sheriff who took them to a rifle range, where "we had a great afternoon shooting guns," said Walliams, "and we wrote a sketch about a sheriff who is showing some recruits some guns." Not just showing them weaponry, but every time the sheriff picks up a gun, he becomes tumescent, and every time he puts a gun down, the erection goes away.

"We've got a character who's an ex-astronaut; he's the eighth man on the moon," added Lucas. "It's the kind of thing we can't do in England, because we don't have any astronauts." "These are comic characters," emphasized Walliams, "it's not a satire on America." "We've kept the British identity at the heart of it," said Lucas.

What that means, said Walliams, is that instead of a very American sense of cool, British humor "is more cynical." "We have more losers," said Lucas. "We have Mr. Bean," said Walliams. "We're losers, we're nebbishes. We're the little man up against the world, the underdog. You have the Fonz."

Not that all of this is going to translate. Walliams and Lucas feel they have to stay true to their sense of humor, so there's a chance that some bits will not strike audiences as the least bit funny. And, said Fuller, "the stuff that was going to be difficult to transfer, like how some of the characters speak, it's just funny. Even if people don't know what they're talking about, it's just funny."

At least, that's what everyone is hoping. But even if some of the British shtick doesn't work, it seems pretty obvious that the "Little Britain" guys are hip to the absurdities of stateside culture. If nothing else, they've glommed onto Branson as if it were comic Nirvana. Take, for example, Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, a Branson dinner-theater attraction featuring a real buffalo stampede, pig races and a phalanx of American flag-carrying horseback riders.

"I love it," said Walliams, who described how the audience is divided up for a series of friendly competitions. "You come in, and they go" -- he put on an American accent -- " 'OK, these people are the North, and these people are the South.' You don't get to choose whether you're pro- or anti-slavery. It's just purely on where you sat. I don't quite subscribe to these politics. And I'd never seen people singing on horseback before. And there's a song about eating this chicken. They go, 'Eat your chicken nice and good, lick your plate clean, if you would.' It's the most absurd thing." "They give the chicken out rhythmically," said Lucas.

"You've got to get out of the big cities," said Walliams of their tour. "If you go to New York, it's an international city. The things we discovered that were quintessentially American are in the smaller places."

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[pirtybirdy]

Just the fact that he doesn't answer the "gay" question, keeps people interested in him and his work. What a great marketing ploy on David Walliams part. Good for him. His stuff is good, he's weird and hilarious. Still, not sure if I'd buy the book. I don't worship the ground he walks on to waste money on the book, especially since I'm jobless...lol!