David Baddiel

David Baddiel FRSL
Baddiel in August 2013
Birth name	David Lionel Baddiel
Born	(1964-05-28)28 May 1964 Troy, New York,U.S.
Medium	Film stand-up television
Nationality	British American
Alma mater	King's College, Cambridge
Years active	1984–present
Genres	Satire observational comedy
Subject(s)	Human interaction sex football religion
Spouse	Morwenna Banks ​ (m.2017)​
Children	2

David Lionel BaddielFRSL(/bəˈdiːl/;born 28 May 1964) is an English comedian, presenter, screenwriter, author and singer. He became known for his early work alongsideRob NewmaninThe Mary Whitehouse Experienceand later for his comedy partnership withFrank Skinner.

He has written the children's booksThe Parent Agency,The Person Controller,AniMalcolm,Birthday Boy,Head Kid,andThe Taylor TurboChaser.He is also a lyricist on "Three Lions,"a song that has been described as the de facto" anthem "of English football since 1996.

Early life

David Lionel Baddiel was born on 28 May 1964 in Troy, New York, the son of a Welsh-Jewish father and German-Jewish mother.He moved to England with his family when he was four months old.

Baddiel's father, Colin Brian Baddiel, came from a working-classSwanseafamilyand worked as a research chemist withUnileverbefore being made redundant in the 1980s, after which he soldDinky ToysatGrays Antique Market.His mother, Sarah, was born inNazi Germany.She was five months old when she was taken to England by her parents in 1939 after the family had fled Nazi Germany, where her wealthy father had been stripped of his assets as a victim ofKristallnacht.Soon after their arrival in the United Kingdom, her father was interned as an "enemy alien"on theIsle of Manfor a year.Baddiel’s grandfather had mental health issues, sometimes requiring hospitalisation, for the rest of his life.Baddiel said in 2022 that he had been parented by his elder brother Ivor, as "my dad was unemployed and angry, while my mum was distracted by her passionate affair".An episode of theBBCgenealogy seriesWho Do You Think You Are?investigated Baddiel's heritage in some detail,but failed to prove his theory that his mother had been secretly adopted from another Jewish family who had no hope of escaping.

Baddiel grew up in theDollis Hillarea of London alongside his two brothers Ivor and Dan (one older, one younger).Ivor is a writer.Baddiel attended theNorth West London Jewish Day SchoolinBrent,and thepublic schoolHaberdashers' Aske's Boys' SchoolinElstree.He studied English atKing's College, Cambridge,where he was a member of theCambridge Footlights,and graduated with adouble firstBA.He began studies for a PhD in English atUniversity College London,but did not complete it.

Career

The Mary Whitehouse ExperienceandNewman and Baddiel

After leaving university, Baddiel became a professional stand-up comedian in London, as well as a writer for acts such asRory Bremnerand series includingSpitting Image.His first television appearance came in one episode of the showbiz satireFilthy Rich and Catflap.In 1988 he was introduced toRob Newman,and the two formed a writing partnership. Subsequently, paired up withSteve PuntandHugh Dennis,another comedy duo, they began writing and performing inThe Mary Whitehouse Experienceon BBC Radio 1, where the show ran for four series and a special. This success led the show to transfer to BBC2, where it ran for two series, after which both duos decided to end the show. During this time, Baddiel also co-hosted the Channel 4 programmeA Stab in the Dark.

AfterThe Mary Whitehouse Experience,Baddiel and Newman re-teamed up forNewman and Baddiel in Pieces,which ran for seven episodes on BBC2, featuring character sketches, monologues, and observation routines. Despite a fraught working relationship, the show saw Newman and Baddiel find enormous success as live performers, held up as examples of comedy as ‘the new rock ’n’ roll’, with their tour (Newman and Baddiel: Live and In Pieces) culminating in the first-ever sold-out gig for a comedy act atWembley Arena,playing to 12,500 people.Despite this success, increasing tension between the pair led to them announcing the tour would be their last together. Their final tour was the subject of a BBC2 documentary,Newman and Baddiel on the Road to Wembley.

Collaboration with Frank Skinner

Baddiel subsequently met and began sharing a flat with fellow comedianFrank Skinner.Both lifelong football fans (Baddiel is aChelsea F.C.fan),the pair created, wrote and performedFantasy Football League,a popular entertainment show based onfantasy football.Running for three series on BBC2, followed by a series of live specials throughout the 1998 World Cup and then again through the 2004 European Championship, as well as a series of podcasts forThe Timesfrom Germany at the 2006 World Cup, and another series forAbsolute Radiofrom South Africa during the 2010 World Cup (amassing over three million downloads). During this time the duo also twice topped theUK Singles Chartwith the football anthem "Three Lions",co-written and performed withThe Lightning Seeds.

The song was originally written as the England football team's official anthem for UEFA Euro 1996 and was re-recorded with updated lyrics as the unofficial anthem for the 1998 World Cup. The song continues to be popular with England fans and returned to the charts in July 2018,celebrating the progress of the England national football team at the 2018 FIFA World Cupwith the phrase "it's coming home" featuring heavily on social media and television.

Baddiel received criticism for his impression of black footballerJason LeeinFantasy Football League,which involved him wearing a pineapple on his head and usingblackface.Lee said he considered this a form of bullying.Baddiel has issued a number of apologies on social media and in an article forThe Daily Telegraph,saying it was "part of a very bad racist tradition". Lee said in 2020 that he had not received a direct apology from Baddiel or Skinner over the series of sketches,but in 2022, Baddiel met Lee to apologise in his Channel 4 documentary.

In his 2021 bookJews Don't Count,Baddiel said that, despite apologizing for the Jason Lee impression "on various occasions", people, particularly on social media, continued to share it in order to silence him:

They want me to shut up, particularly about anti-Semitism. As far as they are concerned, the photo of me as Jason Lee is a trump card that means I cannot speak about racism, even the racism that threatens me personally.

After endingFantasy Football League,the pair took an improvised question-and-answer show to the Edinburgh Fringe which then became a television series,Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned,which ran for five series on ITV, as well as a West End run at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 2001.

The pair also appeared on a celebrity special ofWho Wants to Be a Millionaire?in 2001, becoming the first celebrity contestants to reach £250,000 for their charities, theCatholic Children's Societyand theImperial Cancer Research Fund.

In February 2022, a clip emerged from Baddiel's 2004 guest appearance on theFrank Skinner Show.In the clip, Baddiel uses "pikey",a pejorative term used to refer to people who are of aTravellercommunity, to negatively denote his own appearance. Critics accused Baddiel of hypocrisy given his own polemic,Jews Don't Count.

Solo work

Baddiel has written four novels:Time for Bed(1996),Whatever Love Means(2002),The Secret Purposes(2006), andThe Death of Eli Gold(2011). In June 2015, he published his first children's novel,The Parent Agency,which won theLOLLIEaward (the successor to theRoald Dahl Funny Book Awards) for "Best Laugh Out Loud Book for 9–13-Year-Olds" and is set to be developed into a feature film (also written and produced by Baddiel) throughFox 2000 Pictures.His subsequent children's novels includeThe Person Controller(2015),AniMalcolm(2016),Birthday Boy(2017) andHead Kid(2018).He wroteThe Boy Who Could Do What He Liked,a short story published forWorld Book Dayin 2016.

In 2001, Baddiel wrote and starred inBaddiel's Syndrome,a sitcom forSky 1which also starredMorwenna Banks,Stephen FryandJonathan Bailey,which ran for fourteen episodes. He also wrote the comedy film,The Infidel,starringOmid Djalili,Richard Schiff,Matt LucasandMiranda Hart.Baddiel has since adapted the film into a musical with music byErran Baron Cohen.Baddiel directed the production which ran at London'sTheatre Royal Stratford Eastin late 2014. Baddiel's other writing credits includeThe Norris McWhirter Chroniclesfor Sky 1, which starredAlistair McGowanandJohn Thomsonand which Baddiel also directed, and two episodes of the ITV reboot ofThunderbirds,Thunderbirds Are Go!

In 2004, Baddiel created and hostedHeresy,a BBC Radio 4 panel show which sees celebrity guests trying to overthrow popular prejudice and received wisdom. The show is currently in its 10th series and has been hosted byVictoria Corensince 2008, with Baddiel returning regularly as a guest. In 2014 Baddiel created and hostedDon't Make Me Laugh,a new panel show for Radio 4 that tasks guests with talking for as long as possible on obviously humorous subjects without getting laughs. The second series aired in 2016. In 2015, he created and frontedDavid Baddiel Tries to Understand...,a BBC Radio 4 show which sees Baddiel try to understand famously complex subjects as suggested by his followers on Twitter, and has now run for three series.

Baddiel has appeared in shows includingLittle Britain,Skins,The Life of Rock with Brian PernandHorrible Historiesand is a regular guest on panel shows including8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown,QIandAlan Davies’As Yet Untitled.In 2016, he fronted a four-part travel documentary forDiscoveryentitledDavid Baddiel On the Silk Road,a 4,000-mile journey to explore the most famous trade route in history, as well as presenting two episodes of BBC2'sArtsnightand becoming a regular presenter ofThe Penguin Podcastin which he interviews authors about the objects that inspired their books, which has seen him interview guests includingJohnny Marr,Zadie SmithandRuby Wax.Other documentaries he has fronted includeBaddiel and the Missing Nazi Billions(BBC2),Who Do You Want Your Child to Be?(BBC2),World's Most Dangerous Roads(BBC2), and an episode ofWho Do You Think You Are?(BBC1). He appeared onDesert Island Discsin 2018.

Baddiel filmed a documentary about his father's dementia,The Trouble with Dad,shown on Channel 4 in 2017.

In 2019 Baddiel featured inTaskmasterseries 9. He won one episode and finished fifth out of five in the overall series.

In January 2021, it was announced Baddiel would appear as a contestant on the 4th series ofThe Great Stand Up to Cancer Bake Off,which aired in Spring 2021.

Stand-up

In 2013, he returned to stand-up comedy with his critically acclaimed showFame (Not the Musical),which ran at theEdinburgh Festival Fringebefore transferring to London'sMenier Chocolate Factoryand a subsequent nationwide tour.In Spring 2016 Baddiel premiered a new show,My Family: Not the Sitcom,again at the Menier Chocolate Factory; the confessional show tells the true story of Baddiel's recently deceased mother and dementia-suffering father.

Following a five-week run, the show transferred to London's West End in September 2016 for another five-week run at theVaudeville Theatre.In spring 2017 it was announced that the show would return to the West End for one final ten-week run at thePlayhouse Theatrein March 2017. In the same month, it was announced that the show was nominated for anOlivier Award,in The Entertainment and Family category.Rob Newmansaw one of these performances, the first time the two had been in the same room since 1993.The show was performed as part of theMontreal Comedy Festivalin 2017 and will tour the UK in 2018. Most recently, Baddiel took the show to a four-city tour of Australia. His new show about social media,Trolls: Not The Dolls,toured the UK in 2020.

Plays and books

In October 2019 Baddiel's playGod's Dicewas produced at theSoho Theatre,London. The title is an allusion toEinstein'sview ofquantum uncertainty:"God does not play dice with the universe". The work deals with "an ageing [quantum physicist] seduced into supporting a radical religious sect".

Baddiel has written books for both adults and children and was elected a fellow of theRoyal Society of Literaturein 2019.

TV at Channel 4

In November 2022 Baddiel fronted aChannel 4documentaryDavid Baddiel:Jews Don't Count.The GuardianTV section summed it upas:

Baddiel focuses on the ideas that formed his 2021 book of the same title. His central thesis is that “Jews don’t count as a proper minority” when it comes to contemporary notions of prejudice and racism. He sets out to explore why so many people seem to ignoreantisemitism,as well as “the dysfunction between progressives and Jews".

TheFinancial Timesreview remarked:

That Baddiel and Channel 4 have already received a torrent of scorn online for making the programme only serves to highlight its importance.

Other interests

Politics

Baddiel is aLabour Partyvoter,but does not describe himself as a "Labour supporter". He has said, "I would never support a political party like that, regardless of what I believe personally. My job is to be funny and that might involve me being funny at the expense of whoever's stepped in shit that week."

In February 2016, Baddiel commented on the election ofJeremy Corbynas Labour leader: "I think it's interesting to think that we've got a proper left-wing Labour politician. My main thing about Corbyn is I think the scaremongering about him by the right-wing press is so absurd it makes me want to support Corbyn, even though in some ways I might not. Some of the people around him I personally wouldn't trust but I think he himself is a decent man."

In April 2017, Baddiel wrote an article forThe Guardianin which he was critical ofKen Livingstone's comments regarding Adolf Hitler and Zionism, but also made it clear that he was not a Zionist and that he disagreed with "religion being the basis for statehood" and what he called "the appalling actions of the present Israeli government".

In March 2018, Baddiel appeared onDaily Politics,in which he described antisemitism as "sort of invisible" to Corbyn and others on the political left because they are focused on "fighting the good fight against capitalism".

In February 2020, he toldThe GuardianthatHolocaust denialis "a direct way of saying Jews are liars, Jews have tricked the world for their own gain, Jews are the most evil, pernicious race that exist". He further said, "It is hate speech. There's no other conclusion.”

In February 2021, Baddiel's non-fiction bookJews Don't Countwas published byThe Times Literary Supplement.The book asserts that double standards are extensively employed (either knowingly or unknowingly) by anti-racists when dealing with antisemitism, stating that "a sacred circle is drawn around those whom the progressive modern left are prepared to go into battle for, and it seems as if the Jews aren't in it". Much of the book consists of examples which the author argues are evidence that such progressives have a blind spot when it comes to antisemitism.

Charity

Baddiel is a patron ofHumanists UKand theCampaign Against Living Miserably(CALM). He acted as compere for theStand-Up to Stop Suicideevent organised by Claire Anstey and the charity,and has appeared on radio advertisements publicising the issue of young male suicide.

In February 2009, Baddiel and several other entertainers wrote an open letter inThe Timessupporting leaders of theBaháʼí Faithwho were then on trial in Iran.Following his experiences with his father, Baddiel has worked closely with a number of charities supporting the victims of dementia and their families. He performed a special one-off charity gala of hisMy Family: Not the Sitcomshow at the Vaudeville Theatre, with all proceeds from the evening being split between theAlzheimer's Society,the National Brain Appeal, and the Unforgettable Foundation.There were also collections made for the charities throughout the run of the show.

In 2017, it was announced that Baddiel would take part inComic Relief'sRed Nose Convoy,in which three pairs of celebrities travel in convoy from Kenya to Uganda while delivering aid.To benefit the cancer charityCLIC Sargent,Baddiel narrated the 2018 short filmTo Trend on Twitterwith fellow comediansReece Shearsmith,Steve Pemberton,andHelen Lederer,and actorJason Flemyng.In March 2019, Baddiel hostedComic Relief DoesUniversity ChallengeonBBC Oneas part ofRed Nose Day.

Personal life

Baddiel has been in a relationship since 1998 with fellow comedianMorwenna Banks,and they married in 2017.They currently live inNorth Londonwith their two children: a daughter named Dolly (b. 2001) and a son named Ezra (b. 2004).Despite his upbringing, he has described himself as a "10 out of 10 atheist"and as a "fundamentalist" Jewish atheist.He suffers from insomnia, about which he has written guest articles.

Baddiel is an avid fan of the rock bandGenesisand introduced them at theirTurn It On Again: The Tourpress conference in 2006. He also provided sleeve notes for the reissue of the albumNursery Crymeas part of theGenesis 1970–1975boxed set.He is a fan of the band's former lead singerPeter Gabriel,and a diarist forThe Timesonce incorrectly reported that he had been "loud and offensive" while attending one of Gabriel's concerts, something Baddiel has referred to in his live act.He is also a fan ofDavid Bowieand marked Bowie's 65th birthday in 2012 by expressing a desire to see him come out of retirement.He attended the tribute concert to Bowie at London'sUnion Chapelfollowing Bowie's death in 2016 and addressed the audience, describing Bowie as "the greatest tunesmith we have".

Bibliography

Year	Title	Publisher	Illustrator	ISBN	Notes
1996	Time for Bed	Warner Books	N/A	9780751519785
1999	Whatever Love Means	Little, Brown		9780316648578
2004	The Secret Purposes			9780349117461
2011	The Death of Eli Gold	Fourth Estate		9780007292448
2014	The Parent Agency	HarperCollins Children's Books	Jim Field	9780007554485	LOLLIEaward winner
2015	The Person Controller			9780007554546
2016	The Boy Who Could Do What He Liked			9780008164911	Published forWorld Book Day
	AniMalcolm			9780008185145
2017	Birthday Boy			9780008200480
2018	Head Kid		Steven Lenton	9780008200527
2019	The Taylor Turbochaser			9780008334154
2020	Future Friend			9780008334222
2021	Jews Don't Count	TLS Books	N/A	9780008399474
	The Boy Who Got Accidentally Famous	HarperCollins Children's Books	Steven Lenton	9780008334253
2022	Virtually Christmas			9780008334307
2023	The God Desire	TLS Books	N/A	9780008550288

External links

• David BaddielatIMDb
• David BaddielatBritish Comedy Guide
• Portraits of David Baddielat theNational Portrait Gallery, London