Walliams's book to hit the screen

David Walliams children’s book Gangsta Granny is to be adapted for BBC One.

His tale is to be made into a one-off hour-long comedy drama, to be filmed later this year and aired at Christmas. However, no cast has yet been announced.

The book tells of schoolboy, Ben, who is is made to stay at his apparently boring grandma’s house. But what he doesn’t know is that she was once an international jewel thief who is now plotting to steal the Crown Jewels.

Walliams said: ‘Gangsta Granny has proved to be the most popular of all my books. It should make for exciting family viewing at Christmas.’

Shane Allen, the BBC’s controller of comedy commissioning, added: ‘The story delivers on David’s penchant for being outrageously funny but yet poignant and tender as well. ‘

The show is being made by the BBC in-house team who adapted Walliams’s book Mr Stink last year, and will be co-written by Kevin Cecil & Andy Riley, who previously wrote Hyperdrive and Gnomeo & Juliet.

Gangsta Granny is Walliams’s fourth children’s book. It was first published in 2011 and is still No1 in the children’s book chart, having sold 430,000 copies.

Walliams’s sitcom Big School, in which he stars opposite Catherine Tate, is currently filming for BBC One.

Published: 26 Apr 2013