David Walliams looked sharp on Tuesday as he attended the press night performance of The Merchant of Venice 1936 at The Criterion Theatre in London.
The comedian, 52, put on a dashing display in a grey plaid blazer over a black turtleneck jumper.
He teamed the jacket with a pair of smart black trousers and coordinating shiny black shoes.
The Merchant of Venice 1936 is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous play, set in in 1930s east London amid the rise of Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts.
It stars Tracy-Ann Oberman as Shylock, a resilient single mother and hard-working businesswoman who is desperate to protect her daughter’s future, when charismatic merchant Antonio comes to her for a loan.
David Walliams looked sharp on Tuesday as he attended the press night performance of The Merchant of Venice 1936 at The Criterion Theatre in London
The comedian, 52, put on a dashing display in a grey plaid blazer over a black turtleneck jumper
He teamed the jacket with a pair of smart black trousers and coordinating shiny black shoes
David’s appearance at the press night comes after he began work on a rebooted series of Little Britain with his co-creator Matt Lucas.
The BBC sketch show ran from 2003 to 2006 and followed the peculiar lives of a number of different diverse British characters.
However, in recent years the series has received criticism for its offensive humour – including blackface and racial stereotyping.
The comedy duo are set to return for a new series, after they previously apologised for the way the original episodes came across.
But the revival will come with major changes, as while in the original series Matt and David portrayed all the characters, they will now be joined by a new range of actors to increase the show’s diversity.
It means characters such as Emily and Florence, Vicky Pollard and Desiree DeVere – played by David in blackface – are unlikely to return.
In December Matt explained to The Sun: ‘The show will be different in many ways. We are talking about how we can have diverse talent on screen and in the writers’ room and conceive it as something which is just not about me and David playing absolutely everyone.
‘That is something we should have done but didn’t do back then.’
The Merchant of Venice 1936 is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous play, set in in 1930s east London amid the rise of Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts, starring Tracy-Ann Oberman
David’s appearance at the press night comes after he began work on a rebooted series of Little Britain with his co-creator Matt Lucas (pictured together)
The BBC sketch show ran from 2003 to 2006 but in more recent years has received criticism for its offensive humour – including blackface and racial stereotyping
He added that he ‘respects’ that ‘things have changed’ since the show was originally broadcast.
Little Britain episodes are still available to watch but carry a warning. They were previously taken off both Netflix and the BBC.
The show returned to streaming services in 2022 after offensive blackface scenes were cut by producers.
Characters donning black face including Pastor Jesse King, Desiree DeVere and other racial stereotypes such as Thai bride Ting Tong, were left in the cutting room.
In a statement at the time, the BBC said: ‘Little Britain has been made available to fans on BBC iPlayer following edits made to the series by Matt and David that better reflect the changes in the cultural landscape over the last 20 years since the show was first made.’
The comedy duo are set to return for a new series, after they previously apologised for the way the original episodes came across, but with major changes to increase the show’s diversity
The show returned to streaming services in 2022 after offensive blackface scenes were cut, including Desiree DeVere and racial stereotypes like Thai bride Ting Tong (pictured)
However, the BBC later defended an ‘explicitly racist’ Little Britain sketch, which is still available to view on iPlayer, where David describes an Asian character as ‘smelling of soy source’ and ‘the ching-chong China man’.
The corporation claimed in November that the sketch was ‘intended to expose and ridicule some of the outdated prejudices and racism that still exist in parts of British society’ after it was revealed viewers felt the content was inappropriate in research by Ofcom.
The sketch, originally broadcast in 2002, shows David as university employee Linda Flint describing an Asian student, Kenneth Lao, over the phone to her manager.
He is described as having ‘yellowish skin, slight smell of soy sauce … the ching-chong China man.’ The scene is accompanied by a laugh track.
