Book Review (Fiction) - Bad Dad

Bad Dad

David Walliams

Illustrated by Tony Ross

HarperCollins Children’s Books 2017                                                   422 Pages          

There once used to be a preachy school of sententious Victorian children’s fiction wherein the bad boy was eaten up by a lion for his wickedness; whilst the good boy came into deserved fame and fortune, before being drawn up to heaven by God and his angels. Thankfully, kid lit had come a long way since those awful days.

Bad Dad is gleefully anarchic, but no less moralistic, plentiful comic havoc notwithstanding. The “Bad Dad” of the title isn’t really bad; he’s a racing champion crippled after a horrific crash and blackmailed into a life of crime thereafter as the getaway car driver for a cartoon trio of villains.  These three, led by the dwarfish, comically sinister Mr Big, are easily the funniest part of the book. The interplay between his two bickering minions “Fingers” and “Thumbs” constitutes a comedy double act that rivals Laurel & Hardy or Abbott & Costello.

After Dad takes the rap for a successful bank robbery and is sentenced to prison, his devoted son, Frank Goodie hatches a desperate plan to free Gilbert, burgle the villains and return the loot to the bank. Naturally, nothing goes exactly to plan and much mayhem ensues.

The supporting cast of Bad Dad are pretty good too; especially Raj the newsagent and Frank’s kindly Auntie Flip who writes terrible poetry and ends up in a same-sex union with the Reverend Judith, a female vicar. But the love story at the heart of Bad Dad is really a filial one; the devotion between a well-meaning father and the son who never lost faith in him.