BBC Three series for Humza Arshad

YouTube star to play an 'obnoxious' right-winger

YouTube star Humza Arshad has landed his own BBC Three series, playing a right-wing TV host.

The Diary of a Badman creator, whose online videos have attracted more than 75 million views, begins shooting Coconut in west London this week.

In the mockumentary, he plays Ahmed Armstrong, a presenter on a tiny TV station, Pak Nation TV, with Goodness Gracious Me alumni Nina Wadia playing his glamorous, fame-hungry wife, Camilla.

Originally from Pakistan but 'civilised in Kent', the 'westernised, gentleman documentarian' Armstrong is described as 'Brexit-supporting, Donald Trump-admiring, Katie Hopkins-worshipping … obnoxious' and 'completely out of touch with his roots'.

Other characters in the ten five-minute episodes include Armstrong's hapless, bullied sidekick Bilal and his new rival Tommy Khan, challenging his place as Pak Nation's number one host.

The commission of Coconut – still a provisional title, based on the slang insult for someone considerd brown on the outside and white on the inside – follows a short pilot that Arshad shot for BBC Three last year, Taking The Humza, which featured Armstrong conducting vox popping around Croydon.

Arshad is one of six international brand ambassadors for YouTube under their Creators for Change scheme, which pays him to create content tackling social issues and encouraging tolerance.

He performed stand-up as his squeaky-voiced Badman character at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe, has signed a book deal with Penguin and toured schools with the Metropolitan Police, performing shows for students on the dangers of online extremism.

He was also one of the social media stars who appeared on Russell Kane's BBC Three survival series, Stupid Man, Smart Phone, climbing the Dolomite mountains in Italy with the stand-up with only a smartphone to guide them.

Since going exclusively online, the channel has increasingly looked to social media stars for comedy content

Another of Kane's Stupid Man travelling companions, Facebook prankster Arron Craskall, has also recently landed his own short form series, See Ya Later.

However, as Chortle reported last month, the channel is simultaneously seeking to spoof the celebrity vloggers phenomenon with Liam Williams's new series Pls Like.

And despite the BBC commission, made by Big Deal Films, Arshad wants to keep making Diary of a Badman episodes for YouTube, telling the Evening Standard last week that 'getting on to the BBC and movies was my dream but now I can't give online up'.

'[YouTube offers] equal opportunity. Not even just the colour of your skin but just different types of people: people who are socially awkward or being bullied, they can still make their own content and people can watch it if they want to… online is the new TV.'

Here's the Taking The Humza pilot: