David Walliams documentary airs after three-year legal fight fails

By Elena Vasquez

An hour-long documentary laying bare the results of a three-year investigation by ITV and the Guardian into David Walliams is now available on ITVX, after releases first on YouTube. Walliams and his lawyers fought to the last to keep the findings secret. Those attempts failed, and the claims by multiple women of the comedian and author's predatory behaviour — dating back decades — have been laid bare before the public.

What does the film actually show?

The documentary, David Walliams: Power and Silence, largely follows what has rapidly, and increasingly enragingly, become a traditional format. Women with claims of historic abuse sit before a camera and give their testimony. The alleged abuse was perpetrated, they say, by a famous man apparently enabled by his fame and by the people intent on maintaining the freedom of a lucrative asset.

Contemporary footage attesting to the jokes and insinuations in the public domain at the time is then shown. Mental vertigo, as the Guardian's reviewer puts it, sets in.

Which archive clips are causing the reaction?

Two clips stand out for their capacity, in the reviewer's words, to make your head spin.

At the British Comedy awards in 2004, Jonathan Ross introduced the ceremony's 15th year with: "Like all 15-year-olds, it's drunk, it's unpredictable and it's probably going home with David Walliams."

A few years later, Alan Carr likened Walliams's approach to women to that of "an illegal taxi driver – you lure them in to a false sense of security and then you pounce".

Both jokes were broadcast at the time. Neither appears to have triggered consequences.

Why the format itself is under scrutiny

The reviewer's central charge is not merely about one man. It is about how little has changed. You wonder, the review notes, at how shocking this archive footage now seems, given how little has — in meaningful, practical terms — changed since.

The visceral accounts of those the comedian allegedly groomed anchor the film. The broadcast jokes around them form the counterpoint. Together they chart an industry culture in which insinuation circulated freely in public while testimony stayed locked behind legal challenge — in this case for three years of investigation and a fight by Walliams and his lawyers to the very last.

Where can viewers watch it?

The documentary runs approximately one hour. It was released first on YouTube, then on ITVX, the broadcaster's streaming platform. It accompanies the Guardian's written reports on the investigation.

The takeaway in plain words: a three-year attempt to suppress multiple women's claims has ended in publication, and the archive footage broadcast alongside their testimony now reads as evidence rather than comedy.