David Baddiel on his new children’s book (The Boy Who Got) Accidentally Famous

Virgin Radio

5 Nov 2021, 10:57

The best-selling author and comedian joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to talk about his eighth kids’ book, his start in comedy, and being back on stage recently.

(The Boy Who Got) Accidentally Famous is out now in hardback, ebook and in an audiobook narrated by David. He told Sam Pinkham, who is in for Chris: “The book is about a kid called Billy Smith who is, in his own mind, very, very dull, and boring, and he goes to the same school that all my children’s books are set in. And most of my children in previous books - my imaginary children - have had amazing and magical stuff happen to them. Like, one kid’s gone through his bedroom wall into a world where you can choose your own parents, and another kid has wished his birthday to happen every day, and then it happened. 

“And then, one day, a documentary crew comes to this school, and they all have to read out in class, ‘a true thing that happened to me once’, and all these kids read out these incredible things, and Billy reads out a story about how they once went to Alton Towers, his family, and the babysitter was sick and they had to turn back, because his dad’s trousers were covered in sick.

“He thinks it’s gone really badly, it’s died that story, and then it goes out on the telly and he thinks, ‘Oh that’s so boring, everyone else’s story is really great’, but then he becomes the star, because he’s the relatable one. Everyone at home starts doing #relatable, #Ilovethatkid, and he becomes a big star through his ordinaryness. 

The author added: “I won’t tell you what else happens. You have to read the book! 

David made his children writing debut in 2014 with The Parent Agency, and since then has sold over 1.5 million copies and translations into 29 languages. Speaking more about his new book, he told Sam: “All my children’s books are about wish fulfillment, and most of them are magical. Most of them are about, you know, a kid who finds a video game, that he’s able to have the powers that they have in the video game, or whatever.  And then I thought, I’m going to write one that’s not magical per se, not actual supernatural magic, but has a kind of magic to it, which fame is.” 

On the subject of fame, the 57-year-old author and comedian said: “People want to be famous. I think, now particularly, kids want to be famous. But when I was a kid - I mean, I sort of did make it - but fame felt like a total other country. On the telly, those people on Top of the Pops, I can’t possibly be in their world, right? Whereas now, I think because of the internet, it does feel kind of reachable. Anyone can stumble into fame, in a kind of Jackie Weaver way, and I think that created the idea for the book, which is, what if there was a kid who wanted to be famous, never thought he would be, but just through the way the internet does that, becomes famous.” 

When Sam asked David whether, when he was starting out in comedy, he wanted to be famous or just good at what he was doing, the comedian responded: “Yeah, I wanted to be a comedian. I was on the cabaret circuit for five years, you know, at a time when it was really rough, and so I wouldn’t have been doing that unless I really wanted to do it.”

Explaining what he meant by the roughness of the comedy circuit, David said: “The first gig I did at The Comedy Store in 1986, I went on at three o’clock in the morning. I was third in the series of open spots, which are the people who go on after the professional comedians, and the one before me, a fight had broken out in the audience, and had to be quelled, and when I came on it was like playing to zombies. I didn’t die, there was no reaction whatsoever! It was just like the audience were asleep, or drunk, or gone! 

“And why would I come back and do that again - because I did, I came back again and got better at it, and eventually ended up compering The Comedy Store - unless there was something driving me, which I don’t think I have anymore? I mean, I like doing what I do… but if you said to me now, at 57, ‘You’ve got to do that to get started’, I would say, ‘No, I’m going to stay home and watch the telly. I’m not going to do that!’”

David’s rescheduled Trolls: Not the Dolls tour continued throughout September and October, after having been postponed due to the pandemic. He told Sam that the audiences were much more receptive than they were at his first ever Comedy Store gig! “It was good. It felt weird, but it also felt like audiences were so overjoyed to be back in a theatre, that I had a head-start in laughs,” he said. 

“People were happy, and I didn’t have to do quite as much work to make them laugh as usual.”

(The Boy Who Got) Accidentally Famous is out now. Find out more at davidbaddiel.com.

For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky, weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.