David Walliams took advantage of his fesitval appearance to make fun of his Britain's Got Talent colleague Simon Cowell. Photo / AP
David Walliams took advantage of his fesitval appearance to make fun of his Britain's Got Talent colleague Simon Cowell. Photo / AP
Fans queue for hours for a speech, a signature and a joke from actor and children’s author.
Coming soon to a David Walliams book near you: a Kiwi connection.
More than 2000 people turned out to see the Little Britain actor and blockbuster children's writer at the Auckland Writers Festival yesterday.
Queues snaked from the Aotea Centre to the nearby Auckland Town Hall as fans of all ages tried to secure Walliams' signature.
Among them were Izzie Newton-Cross, 11, and her friend Minnie Stratton-Parker, 9. "He told me his favourite things in New Zealand are the people and the food," Izzie, from Birkenhead, said.
Grey Lynn sisters Jasmin and Indigo Devereux, aged 8 and 3 respectively, also had books signed by Walliams.
"He was really nice and said his favourite children's book and film was Alice In Wonderland," Jasmin beamed. "I am going to get all his books now."
But it was when Walliams was asked by a young reader whether he would write about a child coming to New Zealand that he teased the possibility of a Kiwi connection.
"I think I'm going to have to add a Kiwi character in some way, otherwise there will be trouble, won't there?" replied Walliams, who noted that after the UK, New Zealand is where his books are most popular.
Walliams, who is also a judge on Britain's Got Talent, had the Aotea Centre crowd laughing as soon as he opened his mouth.
Walking tall onstage to rapturous applause, the comedian commanded, "lower your expectations".
David Walliams signs a book for young fan Izzie Newton-Cross.
But with endless quips at Simon Cowell's expense, he satisfied all chuckle demands.
Walliams claimed Cowell had inspired a story about a James Bond-type villain, an evil music mogul with a metal heart, who is slowly and secretly replacing the members of a boy band with robots.
"But it's possibly too close to the truth so I haven't written it."
Still, the comedian once wrote a picture book especially for Cowell's son. "I think he was secretly touched even though he didn't show it."
Sometimes hailed as the successor to his hero Roald Dahl, Walliams said he learned from Dahl's books about how to write slightly dangerous stories that parents still trust - "books that children read with a torch under the duvet".
Wearing a tasteful hint of pocket handkerchief, he talked about meeting the Queen and playing the UK Prime Minister.
"I feel this is a role that would suit me in real life."
He said he doesn't want Peter Jackson to direct any film adaptations of his books.
"He'd add in an army of orcs, he couldn't help himself."
Audience questions were a session highlight. "What's your favourite book you've written?" asked one. "Probably Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," came the lie in reply, referring to JK Rowling's first book.
And then: "Awful Auntie is one I'm proudest of. It's so different from the others and available to buy just outside."
"Did you have an awful auntie?" asked another.
Walliams said he had three aunties, all living, "and this is being filmed and put on the internet, so the answer is no".
