David Walliams aired one of his most infamous sketches with Matt Lucas at a tech conference this month, and explained 'it wasn’t meant to be controversial'.
The actor and comedian was the headline speaker at The Future of Cyber Security conference in Manchester earlier this month, with his ‘fireside chat’ having promised to ‘inspire, inform and entertain’.
And from clips on social media, it seems the 53-year-old’s chat included him pulling up an old video from Come Fly With Me.
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The mockumentary series created by Walliams and Lucas aired back in 2010 and has grown to be even more controversial ever since.
Come Fly with Me was removed from Netflix in 2020, having already been removed from BBC iPlayer.
But Walliams took his chance at the cyber security event to talk about the ‘naughtiest sketch’ he had done with his co-creator.
“We had this idea to play these two Japanese school girls who often waited around in airports to meet the famous,” he explained. Even if you wish you didn’t, I bet you know exactly which sketch he’s on about.
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The Little Britain actor said they thought about who would be ‘the most unlikely person’ for the girls to be fans of before settling on Martin Clunes.
Warning: This content contains racial stereotypes which some viewers may find offensive
“Martin Clunes was meant to be in the sketch, we meant to meet him but he pulled out at the last minute,” Walliams said in a video posted by tech worker Harrison Kauffman.
“We were kind of annoyed but we thought, ‘You know what? We can probably do this sketch without him.’”
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Clunes confirmed to The Times that he was meant to be in the sketch but his ‘schedule closed up’. While he was ‘flattered’ at first by being chosen by the pair, he later found Walliams to have been ‘very rude’ about him, as he was labelled as ‘the most unlikely person’ for the fans to be obsessed with.
At the cyber security event, Walliams went on to say: “So this is probably the most controversial thing we ever did, it wasn’t meant to be controversial, it was just meant to be funny.”
He then played the clip at the talk which got scattered laughter from the attendees as they applauded at the end.
“Well, let’s file that under ‘you couldn’t do that now’,” the former BGT judge said.
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While Come Fly with Me was ranked as the most watched comedy of 2010, it received thousands of viewer complaints and is widely criticised for content many view to be racist.
Topics: David Walliams, BBC, Celebrity, TV and Film
Jess Battison