David Baddiel

David Baddiel (born May 28, 1964, Troy, New York, USA) is an English comedian, novelist and television presenter. After studying at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Elstree, he read English at King's College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Cambridge Footlights, and graduated with a double first. He then followed this up with a Master's in English at University College London, finishing in 1989.

Career

Baddiel became a cabaret stand-up comedian after leaving university and also wrote sketches and jokes for various radio series. His first television appearance came in a bit-part on one episode of the showbiz satire Filthy, Rich and Catflap.

In 1988, he was introduced to Rob Newman, a comic impressionist, and the two became a writing partnership. They were subsequently paired up with the partnership of Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis for a new topical comedy show for BBC Radio 1 called The Mary Whitehouse Experience, and its success led to a transfer to television, shooting Baddiel to fame. Two seasons were made for BBC2, during which time Baddiel also co-hosted a Channel 4 monologue programme, A Stab In The Dark with Michael Gove and Tracey MacLeod.

After the two duos chose not to do another series of The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Baddiel teamed up with Newman again for the Newman and Baddiel in Pieces series, which ran in 1993. The duo subsequently split with some acrimony after becoming the first ever comedians to play (and sell out) Wembley Arena.

Baddiel then took in a lodger at his London apartment - fellow comedian Frank Skinner - and asked his new flatmate to co-present when he was offered the chance to do a programme based on the fantasy football craze in newspapers. The show was Fantasy Football League, and later they took an improvised question-and-answer show to the Edinburgh Festival which then became a TV series, Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned.

The duo also twice topped the UK singles chart with the football anthem "Three Lions", initially written as the official England for Euro 96, and later re-issued unofficially, with updated lyrics, for the 1998 World Cup. Baddiel and Skinner collaborated on podcasts for Times Online during the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

In 2001, Baddiel made a sitcom for Sky One, Baddiel's Syndrome. In 2004, he created a show called Heresy for Radio 4, which attempts to challenge received opinion. He also played himself in the BBC animated comedy series Monkey Dust, in a self-lampooning role.

He has appeared in the UK comedy Little Britain playing a person dressed up as David Baddiel. He did not speak in the show, only mimed someone else speaking over him.

He has been writing a column in the Mail on Sunday newspaper, magazine "LIVE", where he has set about trying to become fitter and losing weight.

On 30 October 2005 he appeared on stage at the Old Vic theatre in London in the one-night play Night Sky alongside Christopher Eccleston, Bruno Langley, David Warner, Navin Chowdhry and Saffron Burrows.

He has also written three novels: Time For Bed, Whatever Love Means and The Secret Purposes.

Baddiel is one of a select bunch of people who went from writing scripts for puppetry satire Spitting Image to being lampooned by the show himself.

Family

He has a daughter, Dolly, born in 2001, and a son, Ezra, born in 2004, with his girlfriend, Morwenna Banks. Baddiel is Jewish and his mother was born in Nazi Germany, a swastika appearing on her birth certificate. An episode of the BBC's genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? investigated his heritage in some detail, but failed to disprove his theory that his mother had been secretly adopted from another Jewish family who had no hope of escaping (her parents had been married but childless for a decade before she was born). His book The Secret Purposes is based in part on the internment of his grandfather on the Isle of Man during the Second World War.

Trivia

• During an appearance on the Channel 4 topical panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats (26 May 2006) he revealed that he had been voted the "World's 6th Sexiest Jew". To his annoyance, star of The Apprentice Alan Sugar was one place ahead of him at Number 5.
• Baddiel is a fan of Chelsea Football Club.
• During an episode of Baddiel and Skinner unplanned David revealed that at the height of his popularity he had had a groupie who had asked him to recite a famous catchphrase of "that's you that is" during intercourse.
• In 1987-88, Baddiel was attached to star in the British television series Red Dwarf, which blended elements of science fiction with comedy and sitcom. However the part was eventually passed.

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