David Walliams promises new ‘Little Britain’ will be as ‘edgy’ as original

David Walliams has vowed the new version of ‘Little Britain’ will be as edgy as the original.

The 52-year-old TV star wrote and appeared in the controversial BBC Three sketch show - which ran from 2003 to 2006 - alongside Matt Lucas, 50, and has promised the newly-revived programme will include non-PC jokes akin to what had come before in the original and their other popular comedy ‘Come Fly With Me’, but insisted the content would not be conveyed in “terrible taste”.

During an appearance on ‘The Therapy Crouch’ podcast, he said: “We’re writing again but we want to do entirely new characters like ‘Come Fly With Me’.

“It’s a little bit edgy, there are jokes in it that are like, not in terrible taste, but - you - know - like ‘Little Britain’ was and ‘Come Fly With Me’.

“No, it’s not trendy, it’s edgy.

“It’s walking a line that some people might be a little shocked at.”

The show came under fire for its stereotypical ethnic and social portrayals which were deemed derogatory to groups from the LGBTQ community and wheelchair users.

When the reboot of the comedy programme was announced last year, Matt emphasised it would be “different in many ways” from what was originally seen in an effort to avoid backlash.

He told The Sun newspaper: “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.

“But we were making the show at the same time as many other people who were doing what we were doing and had that approach.”

The comedian insisted he and his co-writer didn’t want to cause any “further upset” with the new version of the programme.

He explained: “Because some people are upset about what we do, or what we have done, out of respect to those people I don’t talk about it publicly because I don’t want to cause further upset to people who were upset.

“I totally accept there are different opinions.

“I accept people feel very differently from others and I respect everyone’s opinion from wherever they come from on this subject. I see things differently now to how we did.

“Things have changed and I respect that.”