Naughty, moving and funny... why Roald Dahl is my hero, by David Walliams

The Britain's Got Talent judge writes about his favourite children's author Roald Dahl - The Daily Mirror

"Nearly perfect": How David describes Dahl - ITV

My interest in Roald Dahl started as a child – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was one of the first books I collected at the library.
I loved the title and it seems to me to be the ultimate children’s story – it’s about chocolate for a start!
If you are a kid and you find one writer you like, you try to collect all their books, so I sought him out.
Also, he was on television a lot when I was a child, so I watched the stories, too. I liked macabre stories like Tales of the Unexpected, with lots of twists and turns in them.
Dahl is someone you are just aware of, someone you know is creative and whose work is very different.
As a comedian, I’ve spent a lot of time working out how to say things that if said in a serious way would be completely unacceptable, and I haven’t always got away with it.
In Dahl’s world, a grandma can be poisoned by her grandson, parents can be eaten by a rhinoceros and yet somehow it’s acceptable. It takes a true genius to pull that off.
In next Sunday’s ITV1 programme, The Genius of Dahl, I try to ­understand where his magic touch came from.

Thrills: Roald Dahl, whose dark tales have gripped youngsters and adults - PA

When I was a child, I devoured every book I could get my hands on. I loved losing myself in colourful and dramatic stories.
Everything about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory electrified me and when I re-read Dahl’s books as an adult it surprised me; there’s nothing prescriptive or predictable about them, with little sense of narrative rules. And they are all nearly perfect.
Children’s books are often seen as the poor relation of literature. But children are just as demanding as adults, if not more so. I should know. I’m a children’s writer myself. Yet I will never be as good as Dahl.
Full story at The Daily Mirror.