David Walliams

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand nine.

Presenter0:27

My castaway this week is David Walliams, star of Little Britain and Cross Channel Swimmer.

Presenter0:33

Sounds odd, doesn't it? And indeed it's the stark anomalies in his life that mark him out from your run of the mill fantastically successful performer. Prime time comedy and heavy weight pinter plays, tacky chiffon frocks and bespoke savil row suits, endlessly reported liaisons with gossip column lovelies

Presenter0:52

but somehow always single. His achievements, it seems, come with a degree of suffering.

Presenter0:57

I have this thing before a show, and I really hope the fight alarm goes off. And it was the same with the swim, he says. I kept thinking, I hope something happens and I'll get let off the hook.

Presenter1:07

Let's go through more of that in just a minute, but let's go through the rundown of your achievements to date. Three BAFTAs and Emmy.

Presenter1:15

Single-handedly raised what was a million with Euro.

David Walliams1:18

Yes.

Presenter1:18

I'm glad you're saying these things because if I say them, it sounds a bit arrogant. It would, but it's easy for me to say them.

David Walliams1:20

I'm glad you're saying these things because if I say them it sounds quite arrogant.

Presenter1:26

more than a hint of somebody who is fantastically focussed.

David Walliams1:31

And driven. Yes, I am incredibly driven. My mum and dad were very, very hard workers and

David Walliams1:37

My dad made sure we were all up on time and we'd never miss school and they both had a really strong work ethic and I've just had that all my life. When I was training to swim the channel, I didn't miss a single training session or ever do less than the trainer had told me to do.

Presenter1:54

And that was while you were also embarking on this massive tour.

David Walliams1:57

Yeah, we were touring the country with uh Little Britain Live and so I would swim in the mornings and then work with Matt in the afternoon and then do the show in the evenings.

Presenter2:05

And driven towards what, do you know?

David Walliams2:07

Making my mum and dad proud. I don't know, seizing your moment, you know. I think me and Matt waited quite a long time for our moment to come. A lot of our contemporaries sort of overtook us, and I think we were a bit scared it was never going to happen. And then when it did happen for us, we really, really focussed and thought, okay, we've got a successful show, now we're going to deliver a second series and a third series, and we're going to tour, and we're really going to kind of, well, I don't want to say milk.

David Walliams2:37

We're really going to enjoy it.

David Walliams2:39

And similarly having the opportunity to do the Pinter play with Michael Gambon, who's been my favourite actor for twenty years, I feel like, well, I'm being asked to do it now.

David Walliams2:48

So I've got to do it now.

Presenter2:49

Because you think there might be a day when you won't get asked.

David Walliams2:52

Yeah, possibly, because um it's a weird business, isn't it? I mean, I don't know if I'm in am I in show business? I think you are. Okay. Well, show business is sort of strange because you never quite know when your day is up, do you? I hope I will have achieved all the things I want to achieve when that moment comes.

Presenter3:08

Your list of eight I don't think I've ever seen a list more full of longing.

David Walliams3:13

Really? Well, i these are the songs I I listen to a lot. The first uh song is a Bjork song called So Broken, which is just her and a flamenco guitar and she's singing about being brokenhearted and I've been in the same room with her a couple of times, but I'm so in awe of her that I actually didn't want to approach her and talk to her, because I just wanted her to remain.

David Walliams3:35

for me, this sort of perfect icon really. And halfway through the song she just kind of lets rip and she's not even really singing any more, she's kind of screaming. And you really get a sense of the pain of the performer.

Speaker 43:51

And they could have the chance

Speaker 44:06

Come down.

Presenter4:20

Bjork and So Broken. You were correcting me, David Walliams, during that piece of music. I missed out some of your important awards, including.

David Walliams4:27

No, only that you said I didn't want to say it, but you said we won one, Emmy, and we've won two.

Presenter4:33

Well, I think that's quite important. I know, but I

Presenter4:37

And also your gold arrow in cubs, and also an inspiration award from some Dutch lesbians. What did you get that for? Do you know?

David Walliams4:43

I don't know. I think they like me because I'm kinda gender bending.

Presenter4:46

Mm-hmm.

David Walliams4:47

Um, I think my core fan base are Dutch lesbians.

Presenter4:51

Take them wherever you can get them is what I would recommend. Um you grew up then in Surrey in in what sounds like a very happy and normal uh household, a big sister, Father Peter, mother Kathleen. Things were pretty straight and narrow.

David Walliams4:52

Yeah.

David Walliams5:05

Yes, very much a sort of nuclear family. You know, we had the sort of Vauxhall Cavalier in the drive and I went to Cubbs, my sister went to Brownies. My mum actually is just retired as a Brownell'cause she's sixty five, but she did that for sort of twenty years. Very much sort of suburban life, yeah. But I I found it quite boring and frustrating.

Presenter5:26

Uh you've said of your childhood that although you had a happy childhood you weren't a happy child.

David Walliams5:31

No.

David Walliams5:32

I was just depressed as a child. I didn't think I was really sort of diagnosed or anything. I think I was just.

David Walliams5:37

unhappy a lot of the time and just found it hard to kind of make friends with people and form relationships with people and

Presenter5:45

You felt yourself to be different.

David Walliams5:46

Yeah, and I liked just escaping. I mean, my favorite thing was just sort of locking myself in the bathroom and like practising comedy routines or being in my room and listening to sort of Rowan Atkinson records and things like that and

David Walliams5:59

Being with myself and my thoughts. I think that's when you develop your imagination.

David Walliams6:04

I think if you g if you're just out playing football, having fun, getting off with girls,

David Walliams6:09

You don't really bother developing that side of yourself in the same way.

Presenter6:12

And so what would you when you were in the in the bathroom, sort of standing on the loop, watching yourself in the mirror of the vanity cabinet, are you able to to say what it was you got from that? Or was it just sort of knowing you were good at it? Or did it speak to something a wee bit deeper? Or?

David Walliams6:25

I think I I learnt a lot about comedy and timing and structures of jokes. And I used to sometimes perform them at school and assemblies and things. I mean there's certain comedian stories like Tony Hancock because he killed himself. You you can't really look at the work knowing that without somehow taking that on board and there's a kind of bleakness.

David Walliams6:47

You know, the boredom of a Sunday afternoon in Chim when it's raining, there's nothing to do.

David Walliams6:52

And Cheem wasn't far away either. It was sort of ten minutes away and that sort of fascinated me as well. But um yeah, I think Hancock spoke to me on a sort of deeper level.

Presenter7:01

And what were you thinking and feeling then, maybe, when you when you were on stage? You you mentioned there intriguingly that you would do performances now and again in, you know, at school assembly or when it was

David Walliams7:08

Yeah. Well, this was the time when I felt powerful.

David Walliams7:12

So any opportunity in school, be it an assembly or school play or there'd be something at Scouts where you'd be doing your entertainment badge or whatever, it'd be like I would seize it. This was my thing. I lived for those opportunities.

Presenter7:26

Tell me about your second piece of music.

David Walliams7:28

It's another sad one. Um it's the Smiths and please, please, please let me get what I want. I mean I had the great pleasure of meeting Morrissey recently and um

Presenter7:40

And unlike Bjork, he did manage to speak to him then.

David Walliams7:42

Well, he he knew I was a fan and

David Walliams7:45

Um, we ended up going for dinner at Jonathan Ross's house. Oh, name dropper. And there was a moment in in the evening when I was sat on the sofa with Morrissey and it was stroking one of Jonathan Ross's dogs, and we were both stroking the dog at the same time and I just thought, What's happened to my life that I'm sitting here with Morrissey? We're both stroking the same dog.

Presenter8:04

There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

David Walliams8:08

But this is one of their greatest songs.

Presenter8:11

Good times for a change.

Presenter8:16

See the luck I've had Can make a good man turn back

Presenter8:24

So plays, plays, plays at Nella

Speaker 48:30

Let me let me let me get what I want this time

Presenter8:39

The Smiths and Please, please, please let me get what I want. So, David Williams, tell me about Daphne. Who was Daphne?

David Walliams8:45

It was me!

Presenter8:46

It was you.

David Walliams8:47

That was the nickname that I was given when I was in the CCF. Do you see?

Presenter8:51

What is the CCF? I don't know.

David Walliams8:52

The C C F is the combined cadet force. So and there that suddenly they were like, Yeah, let's call him Daphne,'cause he's gay and then I just sort of played up to that.

Presenter8:54

Yeah.

Presenter9:02

And why did they think you were gay? Because you didn't

Presenter9:06

Did you not want to go?

David Walliams9:07

I can't help it, Kirsty.

David Walliams9:09

But um I'm just naturally a feminine and I'm sort of drawn to lots of feminine things.

Presenter9:16

So who were your friends? You must have had friends as well as you.

David Walliams9:17

That's because I have friends and I've still got, you know

Presenter9:20

Did you have I mean, a g your best friend at school was

David Walliams9:22

Yeah, it was a guy called Robin Dashwood who I'm still really, really close friends with and we'd see each other all the time.

Presenter9:22

Yeah, it was a

David Walliams9:29

But yes, I I sort of played up to it. I know that's a bit of a cliche, isn't it? You're bullied and then you kind of uh play up to it and you're the class clown, but that was true to some extent. Ben Miller, a comedian, said a good thing. He said, Comedy is a way of controlling people's laughter at you.

David Walliams9:45

If you turn it all into an act, it's a way of sort of controlling it and deflecting it.

Presenter9:49

And so the thing that you were good at you were when did you start swimming? You started out as a swimming.

David Walliams9:54

Well, I was a fat boy.

Presenter9:56

High fat.

David Walliams9:57

Very, very fat. I wouldn't have fitted into this room. Um no, I was just overweight. And swimming is the sort of thing you can do if you're overweight, you know,'cause you can't really run or jump.

David Walliams10:08

And I couldn't really catch or throw balls. But I could swim and I actually like being in the water. There's something about the strokes, it's like a kind of metronome or something, something it gets you into a really nice mental state, I think.

Presenter10:22

Tell me about your third piece of music.

David Walliams10:25

Well, when me and my friend Robin Dashwood were at school, the band The Pet Shop Boys broke and we were absolutely obsessed with them.

Presenter10:33

What did they speak of to you? What what obsessed?

David Walliams10:35

Something different.

David Walliams10:37

the big city, there was something gay about them as well, which at the time was kind of unspoken, and that was kind of strange because in the sort of mid eighties you just you didn't really kn know of anyone who was gay. I didn't even know if it really existed. Anyway.

David Walliams10:52

This Petrop Boy song is called Later Tonight, and it's just a really, really beautiful song about longing for someone. Someone's watching this sexy guy walk past and uh he never ever manages to speak to him. He doesn't even look in his direction.

Presenter11:10

You wait till later.

Presenter11:14

Too late up tonight

Presenter11:18

You wait till later, too later

Speaker 111:20

Late out to leave.

Presenter11:23

Till later tonight

Speaker 411:23

Uh

Speaker 111:23

Later

Presenter11:34

The Pet Shop Boys and Later Tonight. So, David Walliams, you went to Bristol University. What was your look at university? What did you look like?

David Walliams11:41

What'd you look like?

David Walliams11:43

Well, I I would this was a great time to go to charity shops in the late eighties, early nineties, because you still got the stuff from the seventies and the sixties. So I would get loads of stuff from charity shops, like suits and big red shirts and ties and stuff, and then people go, Where have you got that from? I say, Oh, it was Jean Paul Gauthier.

David Walliams12:00

And what do I look like? I dunno. I look like me, but younger.

Presenter12:05

Matt Lucas said that the first time he met you you were at the center of sort of the coolest group. Would this have been at the National Youth Theatre or would you have to do that?

David Walliams12:11

Yeah, that's where we met at the National Youth Theatre in nineteen ninety.

Presenter12:15

Price

David Walliams12:15

Well, I didn't see myself in that way, but I suppose I was. I think I was pretty confident at that time because I knew I could make people laugh. And yeah, me and Matt met. And we were both real big comedy fans really, and we'd just talk about the comedy we like and there was no real sense we would ever become comedians.

Presenter12:32

It it sounds like there was a marked difference between your early teenage self and this point at which you actually were becoming the person you had always longed to be, or at least living the life you'd longed to be.

David Walliams12:39

At least living the life you blossomed. I think I blossomed a bit because I also fell in love with uh my first girlfriend called Katie Carmichael and she was very, very cool and kind of falling in love with her, it's kind of brought me to life, I think.

Presenter12:54

And it was reciprocated, was it was a proper romance?

David Walliams12:57

Yes, he liked me too.

Presenter12:57

Uh

David Walliams12:59

I know it's hard to believe, but uh we were Kirsty in love.

David Walliams13:04

for about four years. Only happened at the end of of university. But that really brought me out of myself. Because I'd never done the things that she'd done me never I'd never gone out all night, you know. I'd never stayed up till dawn and she brought all of that out of me. And we sort of would dress up and go out together.

Presenter13:05

Arab

Speaker 113:06

Uh

David Walliams13:21

you know, like she would put on a kind of fairy outfit and she'd dress me up in a sort of sailors' outfit or something and we'd go out and dance and that was a great time and that really I think gave me confidence.

Presenter13:33

Uh the book generally that y you have written it seems to me to be beautifully written and a very sort of poignant and thoughtful book. It's this children's book called The Boy in the Dress. And there are some really interesting passages where you talk about this boy who ends up wearing the dress and finding happiness, is being sort of dressed up by the very beautiful girl who he makes friends with. Was is was some of that the memories from those days?

David Walliams13:55

Definitely, yeah. She really encouraged the exhibitionist side of me and she would buy me things like for my birthday, she'd buy me like a Jean-Paul Gauthier skirt.

Presenter14:04

Did you go out publicly wearing the same?

David Walliams14:05

Yeah. Yeah, we go to nightclubs and stuff like that.

Presenter14:08

It sounds like the most perfect affair. Why did it end?

David Walliams14:11

I th you know, it went wrong and she met someone else and, you know, she's now got a couple of kids and, you know, she's still a very special person in my life, but things change, don't they? I I would feel very lucky that I went out with her because I think she really saved me, I think, and she really breathed life into me.

Presenter14:30

What do you think she saved you from?

David Walliams14:32

Misery.

Presenter14:33

Yeah.

David Walliams14:34

you know, she was the first woman that I slept with as well.

David Walliams14:38

You know, it was a really, really magical time.

Presenter14:40

Let's take a break for some music. Tell me about the next piece of music.

David Walliams14:44

Well, this is uh The Velvet Underground Nico Sunday Morning, and this is an album I remember listening to with Katie and I remember lying in bed with her, listening to it, and thinking, Wow, she's opened up a whole new incredible world for me

David Walliams14:58

Say

Speaker 415:00

Good morning.

Speaker 415:03

It's all a street sequence, not a lot.

Speaker 415:12

Watch out!

Speaker 115:14

Rules behind you.

Speaker 115:16

There's always someone around you you call me

Speaker 115:23

It's nothing at all.

Presenter15:29

The Velvet Underground and Nico and Sunday Morning. It it's unavoidable and I and I don't know why I slightly have been avoiding it, but you've talked about putting on the frocks and you have mentioned the fact that you've got this very camp site. Why why do you think the media is preoccupied with the sexuality of David Williams?

David Walliams15:45

Because I think that in the show, you know, we play lots of camp and sometimes gay characters. And then they see that I've got kind of I go out with Damorous girlfriends and stuff, and they kind of can't quite compute the two things. And it's like a kind of running joke in the Sun newspaper about the this thing called the Gayometer. And if I'm out with Natalie and Bruglier, I've gone straight. If but if I go out with uh Dale Winton, I'm in the pink. A lot of people are just f friends. Nathalie and Bruglier, she's a friend, so we just go out and we have fun and but because it's not an interesting story, oh, he's friends with a girl, they have to sort of make out that, you know, something else is going on. This I don't really mind, you know. I play up to it to some extent, so.

Speaker 116:16

Yeah.

Presenter16:30

But what about the dating you do and the photographs that are in the tabloids and the gossip columns of you with various girls? I mean, does that mean that there's never been love while you've been famous?

David Walliams16:41

That is correct to say, yes. I haven't been in love for about not a love that was requited for about seven years.

Presenter16:51

And is that relatable to the fact that you have been a very famous man for the last six or seven years?

David Walliams16:57

Um, possibly, in part, yes. I think it's connected to that. I also think I just I got very close to someone and I got very hurt and I just never really felt like I wanted to be that intimate with anyone again.

Presenter17:09

And have you ever had a relationship with a man?

David Walliams17:12

No.

Presenter17:13

Do you think you will?

David Walliams17:14

If I fell in love with a man, then, yeah, I wouldn't say that could never happen. But I really think about it because I already am a feminine, and I've also thought about it. You think, am I gay? And then I so love being with women, and I so love women's bodies and all that. I think, well, no, I can't be. But sometimes I think, oh, it would just be simpler if I was. Because everyone thinks I am. I'm quite camp.

David Walliams17:41

But no, I I don't think I am. If I was gay, I'd scale up with it. Would you? Yeah.

David Walliams17:46

But definitely I love women. I love being around women. I find them incredible and intoxicating. And I've never had that feeling, you know, that I get with women, with a man.

Presenter17:55

Who'd what would be your ideal woman?

David Walliams17:58

Um present company excluded. There's a couple of girls I know who oh, I'm gonna name drop again, and they are amazing. So much fun and they're so amusing and naughty and beautiful. And one's Kate Beckinsell that I've known for a really long time since before she was well known, and that's in Brugler as well. And when I'm with them, I'm like.

Presenter18:02

Yeah.

David Walliams18:20

I turn to jelly'cause they're so exciting to be with.

David Walliams18:24

But neither of them would ever go out with me, so so I can't I don't know.

Presenter18:28

Well Kate Beckinsdale's attached, but Natalia and Brugia isn't as far as I know.

David Walliams18:31

Yes, but she speaks all the time. She always makes it very clear that uh we could never be anything more than friends.

Presenter18:39

Let's take a break for some music.

David Walliams18:42

Um the next song I'm going to pick is a Nick Cave song called Into My Arms from an album called The Boatman's Cool. This album I sort of listened to every night for about nine months when the last girl I was in love with when we split up that's a game on from about six or seven years ago now. And um I would just listen to this album all the time and cry. It was sort of the only thing that sort of I had to hold on to.

Speaker 119:12

I don't believe in an interventionist God.

Speaker 119:22

But I know, darling, that you do.

Presenter19:28

Nick Cave and Into My Arms. I watched the documentary that you did about this extraordinary swim, the cross channel swim. Seven thousand people have attempted it. Only how many? Five hundred six hundred and

David Walliams19:40

Why was number six six six?

Presenter19:41

Okay.

David Walliams19:43

Uh

Presenter19:43

Yeah.

David Walliams19:43

Uh Someone out there. Yeah.

Presenter19:44

The bee

David Walliams19:44

Uh

Presenter19:44

Uh The mark of success, though, because you made it across in what, ten and a half hours?

David Walliams19:47

Yeah.

David Walliams19:48

Yeah.

Presenter19:49

A phenomenal challenge to take on. The thing that struck me when I was watching the documentary was you seemed like a normal person who decided to do a very abnormal thing. You didn't seem like one of those sort of sporty

Presenter20:01

People who likes to be challenged by stretching themselves physically to the limit. You kept sort of saying, Why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself through it?

David Walliams20:08

Yeah, I mean, there's a tendency I think that people think, you know, oh, well, he's famous, you know, he could do that with that channel. We've got to know it's still exactly the same as if you were. And so, uh, yeah, it was just kind of an amazing time in my life and I actually didn't think that I was going to make it.

Presenter20:23

How many hours of training a day for how many months?

David Walliams20:25

Well, it kind of built up, so you start off doing sort of two hours, three hours, four hours. By the end I'd do eight hour training sessions in the sea, in Dover Harbor, get in at nine in the morning, get out at five in the afternoon.

Presenter20:36

And these are huge, chilling, rough waves, and you don't know what's in the depths of the sea and you are swimming sometimes amongst not the most uh luxurious.

David Walliams20:44

Yeah. It's mainly the cold. It's mainly the cold that really gets you down. My hands, you know, you to make a paddle you want to put your fingers together, but they become like claws, which is mentally quite tough. But I was just determined, I thought, I've got this opportunity to do something.

David Walliams21:00

Extraordinary, and I've really got to grab it by both hands. And my mum and dad were there on like another boat watching me.

David Walliams21:10

And in the end it kinda went like a dream.

Presenter21:12

And something you clearly it seems important, something your parents could be extremely

David Walliams21:16

Yeah, I'm really proud of. Also because, you know, I think my parents' generation, when my my dad's passed on now, my mum was sixty-five and to their friends, Little Britain, you know, some of them liked it, some of them didn't, some of them thought it was too rude. But swimming the Channel and raising money for charity, you can't really have a negative slant on that. So I was just really pleased that it was something that could make them happy.

Presenter21:39

Did it have redemptive aspects, did you feel like?

David Walliams21:42

I definitely felt.

David Walliams21:43

That to some extent I was doing it in, yeah. I mean, obviously, me and Matt went to Africa and we saw.

David Walliams21:51

The desperate situation some people live in there.

David Walliams21:54

And that inspired me to do it. I wouldn't have done it without. But also it was something

David Walliams21:58

About putting myself through something that was incredibly painful and difficult. And I think I was definitely looking for some sort of redemption, yeah.

Speaker 122:06

Yeah.

David Walliams22:08

I kinda got to think of myself that I wasn't a good person.

David Walliams22:11

And I don't know why I have that, but I just struggle with that. And this was something I thought, oh, you know, I've done a good thing.

Presenter22:18

You say you don't know why you have it, but you're you strike me as a thoughtful person. You must have pondered on why you have it.

David Walliams22:26

Do you know, I think I s also have a lot of self loathing and and um

David Walliams22:32

And this was something I could just be proud about in a simple way.

Presenter22:36

Tell me about the next piece of music, then.

David Walliams22:38

Um the next song is a a Bob Dylan song.

David Walliams22:42

Called you're a big girl now.

David Walliams22:44

And uh this is from his Blood on the Tracks album, which is another album about lost love. And it says I think he'd spessed up with his wife or something when he wrote this album.

David Walliams22:54

And I think this album's so great because

David Walliams22:57

He's full of anger. He's full of hate rage.

David Walliams23:01

But he's also full of longing and a sense of loss, and I think he just really captures the complexity of those emotions.

Presenter23:08

Love is so simple!

Presenter23:12

To quote a phrase

Presenter23:16

Uh

Speaker 123:16

You've known it all the time.

Speaker 123:19

I'm learning it these days.

Speaker 123:21

Oh, I know where I can find

Speaker 123:25

Whoa

Presenter23:28

In somebody's mood

Presenter23:34

And it's a price I have to pay.

Presenter23:37

Bob Dylan, and you're a big girl now. You've done as we've been speaking, a really I must commend you for the amount of name-dropping you've done, because you've done it so much.

David Walliams23:45

Well I need to drop more.

Presenter23:47

No, really. Stop now. But you mentioned you mentioned Morrissey. I know Paul McCartney kicked did he come backstage when you were doing your own. Yes, did he?

David Walliams23:54

Sir Paul McCartney, yes, did. He came the same night as Kate Moss and Pete Dockerton.

Presenter23:58

Oh I'm almost on the floor

David Walliams24:00

I mean, it was so mind-blowing. It's like, right, one of the Beatles.

David Walliams24:04

I'm one of the main ones.

David Walliams24:08

It's come. So I came on stage at the show the show as Lou in the Lou and Andy sketch.

David Walliams24:13

And I said the first line in my head I went, Oh, I wonder if Sepulner McCartney liked that joke And then I said the second line, Oh, I wonder if Sepulch McCartney's laughing And then I had to go, David, David, turn off this thing in your head Yes, Sepulner McCartney's probably enjoying it and eventually relaxed and it was it was incredible.

Presenter24:31

Can it be right, though, that you had to work up the courage to introduce your mother to Alan Titchmarsh?

David Walliams24:37

I love to take my m mum out for an evening. And so I took her to the BAFTAs. She goes, Oh, I'd really like to meet Alan Titchmarsh. So Alan Titchmars was walking up some stairs. I sort of run after him and go, Oh, Alan, can I introduce you to my mother? and he was very, very nice. Also, I've met the Queen with my mother. The real one. The real queen. The actual Queen, yeah.

Presenter24:54

Yeah.

Speaker 424:54

The actual queen, yeah.

David Walliams24:56

My mum's like a ru you know, she is like the nicest person I've ever met in my life. She's just pure love. And to get to take her to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen was just extraordinary. And that was the best gift I think I could ever give her in that way.

Presenter25:13

Are there times- there must be times, surely- when when this um

Presenter25:17

Overbearing fame that you have, when it's horribly gotten in the way and you've thought, I want to turn off the tap of fame, this is not appropriate, and this is my private life.

David Walliams25:28

When my dad was dying, um, in the last couple of days of his life, he was in a hospice. And me, my mum, my sister Julie, and her husband Ian was sat there and watching life slip away from someone you love. And um

Speaker 125:38

There.

David Walliams25:43

You know, when I came out of the room, you know, to get a cup of tea, people said, Oh, can I have your autograph? And I did sign them for people because it was with my mum and I didn't want it to be awkward, but I did think, God, you know, I'm in a hospice. I know you're in a hospice too, the people asking me for my autograph, but there's times like that and you think, Well, I'm just I'm just a son there, grieving for my dad. I'm not I don't want to be the famous person then that there's no use to me then.

Presenter26:04

And then that

Presenter26:07

Let's take a break for some music then. Track number seven.

David Walliams26:10

This is a song that I love, a cold porter song, called You Do Something to Me. This is a kind of pretty much straightforwardly romantic song. Although you do get the sense that

David Walliams26:20

In a way, Culpo to saying you have a terrible power over me And what I really love about Sinead O'Connor's version is that she brought out the pain a bit.

Speaker 426:35

Something to me Something that simply mystifies me

Speaker 426:50

Two

Speaker 426:55

And

Presenter26:55

Why should

Presenter26:58

Jinead O'Connor and You Do Something to Me and as You Said David Walliams, a romantic song, but something of a comment on the power of love.

David Walliams27:05

Well, the power of what that

David Walliams27:07

Someone's power over you.

David Walliams27:10

But I like it. It's still a romantic thing. You do something to me that nobody else can do.

Presenter27:15

You're thirty seven then. Do do you imagine for yourself somewhere in the future uh love, real long lasting love and a family and kids and the picket fence and all of that?

David Walliams27:25

I definitely would like the picket fence.

David Walliams27:29

What were the other things again? Um yeah, uh yeah, I would like that. I mean, having a nephew uh has been amazing because I've obviously got to spend a lot of time with him. And also I was totally unprepared for how much I would love him.

David Walliams27:45

But, uh yeah, he's lovely and I I know I would like to have kids, yeah. I mean, I'm sure I will one day.

Presenter27:51

And of course now you will be alone on the island. Will this solitude be welcome?

David Walliams27:56

I can't stand being on my own.

David Walliams27:58

I hate it, I have a pathological fear of being on my own.

David Walliams28:02

When I'm with my own thoughts I start to unravel myself.

David Walliams28:06

And I started to think really dark thoughts, self destructive thoughts, and I and I said, Well, I can't like if some of you said to me, You've got to spend a weekend on your own, in your house, I wouldn't be able to hack it.

Presenter28:18

Does that explain why you go out all the time and people take your pictures and you're always at parties? Because I you're not somebody you're not a drinker, you're not not so far as I know, somebody who indulges in drugs, you're

David Walliams28:22

Because I'm not sure.

Presenter28:28

You know, you're you're a kind of straightforward person in that respect.

David Walliams28:32

Yeah. I've just got a terrible fear, you know, of of being on my own. I don't like it. I mean, I the only thing that can really steer it is creativity. If I'm alone with, you know, I'm writing something and then I can kind of feel calm.

David Walliams28:47

I think there's something strange about needing a load of strangers to laugh at you, needing that love and attention from people that you've never met, craving that.

David Walliams28:59

Wanting to make people off the time, you're wanting to make them happy.

Presenter29:02

And does it does it does it ever satisfyingly quell th the the lack of self-worth and the self-doubt that you that you say you have?

David Walliams29:02

And he does

Presenter29:11

Or is it just for the moment that it's happened?

David Walliams29:14

It's really weird. You know, when we were on that tour, we would play, as you say, to like, you know, sometimes ten thousand people at an arena and some nights it would be amazing and we'd get a novation and everything like that. And an hour later I'd be in my hotel room drinking some peppermint tea, feeling

David Walliams29:30

Pretty lost.

Presenter29:31

So it only highlights it, then?

David Walliams29:32

Yeah, that's the terrible thing. It sort of it points up how miserable you are.

David Walliams29:39

This is a cheery programme, isn't it? The music's been depressing, I've been depressing.

Presenter29:43

Now the laughing policeman tell me about your next trip.

David Walliams29:45

Wait, wait.

David Walliams29:46

No, I I it it does point up that. I mean, it's not all the time I feel like that, but and I and I love I thrive off the company of others. I love that. I love being sociable. I love being creative, you know. So I've got lots of things to be thankful for.

Presenter29:49

Yeah.

Presenter29:58

Do you worry then about the

Presenter30:00

And that's incredibly frank of you to say, you know, you you unravel and you unpick yourself. I mean, are you do you worry about that tendency? Do you

David Walliams30:07

I do, but I've l well, I'm trying to deal with it, but I've also just learnt that, you know, I have to make plans, you know. I have to see people and do things because I don't want to get myself in that state. And I know I can sort of keep it at bay by being creative, you know.

Presenter30:16

Right.

Presenter30:22

Hmm.

Presenter30:26

Tell me about your final disc.

David Walliams30:29

This last song I've picked is a Johnny Cash song, and this is one of his early hits called I Still Miss Some One and what we were saying about, you know, going out to parties and things like that. There's actually a lyric in this song about that. You know, I go to all the parties, but um I sit in a darkened corner'cause I still miss someone.

Speaker 130:47

I still miss someone.

Speaker 130:53

At my door the leaves are fallen

Speaker 130:59

The cold wild wind will come

Speaker 131:04

Sweethearts walk by together

Speaker 131:09

And I still miss someone.

Presenter31:14

Johnny Cash and I Still Miss Someone. I'm going to give you the Bible and uh the complete works of Shakespeare. Okay. I don't like the Bible. Fine. Do you want the Shakespeare?

David Walliams31:19

I don't want the Bible. I don't like the Bible.

Presenter31:24

Yeah.

David Walliams31:24

Yes.

Presenter31:24

Yes. Right. And you're you're allowed to take another book of your own.

Speaker 131:25

Uh

David Walliams31:25

Uh

Speaker 431:25

Uh

David Walliams31:25

Uh

Speaker 431:25

Uh

David Walliams31:25

Uh

David Walliams31:28

I would take Philip Larkin's collected poems. I always travel with that book and I always feel you can dip into it any time you like, reread poems. So many brilliant, brilliant phrases in Larkin and also I just love his world view as well.

Presenter31:43

It's yours to take, and and a luxury.

Presenter31:46

What were your luxury

David Walliams31:46

Well

David Walliams31:47

I would like to take gum.

David Walliams31:50

Because I don't like being on my own, so if I really start hating it, I can shoot myself.

Presenter31:56

Okay, that's your luxury and

Presenter31:59

Which of the eight would you like to pick? Just one disc?

David Walliams32:02

Oh, yeah.

David Walliams32:04

And what could I listen to over and over again?

David Walliams32:08

I think probably the Smiths Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want because as soon as that song finishes you want to listen to it again.

Presenter32:15

David Williams, thank you very much for letting us view your desert island discs.

David Walliams32:18

Thank you so much for having me. Sorry it was depressing.

Presenter32:28

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.