Mrs Brown's Boys deserved the last laugh over comedy snobs: JAN MOIR on the BBC classic's victory over Fleabag and Ricky Gervais at the NTAs
On Tuesday David Walliams presented the National Television Awards with his usual flinty self-interest masquerading as a comic routine. He played it for laughs, although few were forthcoming throughout the 150-minute transmission. Why? For a start, it is becoming painfully obvious that there is nothing fake about his preening narcissism, nor his reluctance to share a stage with another comic who might — God forbid — be funnier or more popular. Walliams's me-me-me act is not comedy any more, but some weird form of psychotherapy; a cry for help, if you like. Even though we are the ones who should be begging for mercy. Yet television executives adore Walliams, pelting him with all the plum jobs, over and over again. Once upon a time it was the ubiquitous Stephen Fry who was so honoured. Now it is Paul O'Grady, Fiona Bruce, Phillip Schofield, Lauren Laverne and Walliams, Walliams, Walliams. Between them, they seem to present everything on television and radio. Th...