The Kent House Series
David Baddiel
Held on Wednesday 8th May 2024
"Gosh, David Baddiel’s got such a fast brain. It was a really interesting talk." KN
David Baddiel is a talented and very bright speaker. We found it interesting and funny - a very good evening!" SB
"I am not sure when I last learnt so much." SR
"Really good conversation. It made me think & made me laugh." JC
About David Baddiel
David Baddiel is a comedian, author, screenwriter and television presenter.
In 1992, he performed to 12,500 people with Rob Newman at the Wembley arena in the UK’s first ever arena comedy show and was credited as turning comedy into “The New Rock’n’Roll”.
This followed the hit TV shows The Mary Whitehouse Experience (BBC2) and Newman and Baddiel in Pieces (BBC2). David later created and presented – with Frank Skinner – Fantasy Football and Baddiel & Skinner Unplanned. Alongside The Lightning Seeds, the pair also wrote the seminal football anthem Three Lions.
David has made several acclaimed documentaries, including the 2016 travel documentary David Baddiel On The Silk Road (Discovery) and in 2017, The Trouble with Dad (Channel 4). More recently he created and presented Confronting Holocaust Denial and Social Media, Anger and Us on BBC2.
David has also published nine hugely successful children’s books and most recently the Sunday Times bestselling non-fiction polemic Jews Don’t Count. Due to the success of this book, David has also written and presented a documentary under the same title for Channel 4.
Interviewer: Matt Stadlen
Matt Stadlen is a TV and radio presenter having presented a twice-weekly LBC show rated number one in London, and boasting a national audience of 150,000+ He has written for the Spectator, The Sunday Times and Radio Times, appeared frequently on Sky News and is the co-author of The Politics Companion.
The God Desire
‘ A hugely heartfelt, funny, kind, fascinating, human and clever book ’ ALAIN DE BOTTON
‘ Magnificent. Breathtaking. And shockingly rare … another one-sitting wonder’ STEPHEN FRY
David Baddiel would love there to be a God. He has spent a lot of time fantasising about how much better life would be if there actually was such a thing as a Superhero Dad who chased off Death. Unfortunately for him, there isn’t. Or at least, that is Baddiel’s view in this book, which argues that it is indeed the very intensity of his, and everyone else’s, desire for God to exist that proves His non-existence. Anything so deeply wished-for we will, considers Baddiel, make real. The admission of his own divine yearnings makes for a book that is more vulnerable – and more understanding of the value and power of religion – than most atheist polemics. A philosophical essay that utilises Baddiel’s trademarks of comedy, storytelling and personal asides, The God Desire offers a highly readable new perspective on the most ancient of debates.