BBC pulls Julia Donaldson’s Room on the Broom from iPlayer over David Walliams allegations

Lauren MorrisSat, November 14, 2026 at 10:08 AM UTC

0

The BBC has removed its adaptation of Julia Donaldson’s Room on the Broom from iPlayer following the allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct made against David Walliams.

The actor and comedian, who voiced Frog in the 2012 animated film, was accused of grooming girls as young as 15 and sexual assault in a joint investigation by The Guardian and ITV on Tuesday (10 November). Walliams denies all allegations.

A criminal investigation by the Metropolitan Police has since been launched into allegations of “non-recent serious sexual offences” against Walliams.

Walliams has just three lines in Room on the Broom, which sees a friendly witch (Gillian Anderson) invite a number of animals to join her on her broomstick. The rest of the voice cast includes Rob Brydon, Martin Clunes, Sally Hawkins, Simon Pegg and Timothy Spall.

Walliams voiced Frog in ‘Room on the Broom’ (Getty)

Despite the Little Britain star’s small role, the TV film has been pulled from BBC iPlayer. In the 30-minute programme, Walliams ribbits and sighs throughout as Frog. He also reads the lines: “I am a frog, as clean as can be. Is there room on the broom for a frog like?”

Fans of the Donaldson book took to social media to protest its removal, with one writing on X: “You can no longer watch room on the broom on BBC iPlayer because Walliams has two sentences as the frog. This is getting ridiculous.”

Another described the animation as “fabulous”, adding: “Removing it is very much an overreaction to a few words spoken by a frog!”

On Tuesday, the BBC announced that it was removing programmes featuring Walliams from its platforms due to the allegations.

Advertisement

A BBC spokesperson said: “These are serious allegations. As such, the BBC is looking carefully at all material featuring and written by David Walliams on our platforms.

“We are in the process of removing some programmes, including Little Britain, whilst this review is under way.”

Alongside Room on the Broom and sketch show Little Britain, the BBC has taken Come Fly With Me and episodes of The Wheel and Would I Lie to You off of the platform.

The BBC's 'Room on the Broom' adaptation is no longer available to watch on iPlayer (BBC)

Meanwhile, Channel 4 has removed episodes of 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and 2021’s Chitty Flies Again, which both featured Walliams.

The comedian was set to release a film adaptation of his 2019 book, Fing!, on Sky next year, with Matt Lucas, Taika Waititi, Blake Harrison and Mia Wasikowska in the cast. However, Sky announced earlier this week that it had dropped the project.

“The allegations made against David Walliams are extremely serious. We have notified the producers of the film of our intention to exit our position as the UK and Ireland licensee of Fing!,” a spokesperson for Sky said. “We have already removed content which features him from our platforms.”

In a letter sent to journalists working on the ITV News and Guardian investigations, Walliams said: “Looking back, I realise that at times I behaved thoughtlessly towards other people I had casual sexual relationships with.

“I realise I did not always take people’s feelings properly into account. That is something I regret,” he continued. “And whilst a power imbalance is inevitable when one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something that I never did.”

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”