David Baddiel

David Baddiel

Date of birth: 28-05-1964

David Baddiel’s first brush with comedy was in 1982 when he wrote and performed in the Sixth Form revue at The Haberdashers Aske School, Elsetree, before developing his talents while a student at King's College, Cambridge. As well as graduating with a double-first in English Literature, he was vice president of the Footlights.

On leaving, he performed stand-up on the London circuit, while working on a PhD entitled Seductive Innocence: The Little Girl In Victorian Sexuality. There he met Robert Newman [then called Rob] and they started writing sketches for the Radio 4 show WeekEnding, which solicited work from any writers who wanted to contribute.

They were subsequently paired up with Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis for the Radio 1 comedy show The Mary Whitehouse Experience, which began in 1989. Two years later it transferred to BBC Two for two series.

Baddiel continued to work with Newman for the 1993 series Newman and Baddiel in Pieces –and later that year became the first comedians to play Wembley Arena, prompting the now clichéd saying that ‘comedy is the new rock and roll’. However, the duo’s relationship was under huge pressure at the time, and they subsequently split with some acrimony.

Baddiel then formed a partnership with Frank Skinner, who at the time was lodging at his London flat, recreating their living-room banter in both Fantasy Football League – which ran on BBC Two from 1994 to 1996, returning on ITV for the 1998 World Cup and 2004 European Championship ¬– and Unplanned, which started life as an Edinburgh Fringe show in 2000 before transferring to the West End and, eventually, TV.

In 1996, the pair teamed up with the Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie to record the England football anthem Three Lions, which has been a terrace favourite ever since.

Outside of these comic partnerships, Baddiel created the 2001 Sky One sitcom Baddiel's Syndrome and devised the Radio 4 panel show Heresy, which attempts to challenge received opinion. In 2009 he appeared in the 3rd series of Skins, alongside his real-life partner.

He has written three novels : Time For Bed, Whatever Love Means and The Secret Purposes and writes a regular literary column for The Times. He also wrote the 2010 comedy film The Infidel, starring Omid Djalili as a Muslim who discovers his parents were actually Jewish.

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David Baddiel to write about The Male Gaze

Can men objectify women’s bodies while respecting their minds?

David Baddiel is to write a book about masculinity entitled The Male Gaze.

And he is to record his last three stand-up shows – Fame: Not the Musical, My Family: Not the Sitcom and  Trolls: Not the Dolls –  for TV  broadcast.

His extended essay will  complete a trilogy of extended books following Jews Don’t Count, which tackled antisemitism, and The God Desire, on atheism and religion

He said the starting point for the title would be that men can both objectify women’s bodies and respect their minds.

Revealing his plans in a major interview with The Times, Baddiel said: ‘It’s possible that men can hold two thoughts in their head. So men can, for essentially libidinous purposes, imagine and see women in this way, while not denying their basic humanity.

‘Obviously women need to be CEOs and judges and politicians and prime ministers. Is it contradictory to also think, "I am interested in that woman physically"? Because I can’t help that interest. That’s part of being a heterosexual male.

‘It doesn’t mean that I see her only as a body. I actually am listening to her as well and think that she should be capable of everything that a man is capable of. The problem is that those two things feel contradictory and, yes, I guess that is what I would like to write about.’

Baddiel was at the vanguard of laddish comedy in the 1990s and has spoken in interviews and his stand-up about watching porn.

And he said he was bracing for a backlash saying: ‘One of the things I was saying in Jews Don’t Count is that you imagine there’s this group of people who are powerful, but they’re not; they’re vulnerable… but I still get pushback from people essentially saying that Jews are rich and powerfu. It will be a thousand times worse if I write about men, because men are powerful. Men are also vulnerable, but they are powerful.

Baddiel was speaking to the newspaper to promote his Talking Books shows – extended Q&As about the issues in his last two volumes.

He describes it a ‘a bit like Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned but less banter and more philosophical and serious — and emotional, I guess’.

He will also be reprising his stand-up shows, each for one night only, to warm up for recording the trilogy for TV in the autumn, although no broadcaster has yet been revealed.

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Published: 1 Aug 2023

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Products

Book (2017)
Birthday Boy

DVD (2010)
The Infidel

Agent

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