A good send-up
Celebs mock themselves in R4 comedies
Radio 4 is planning two sitcoms featuring celebrities in roles very similar to their own real-life characters.
In the first, extravagant former TV personality and Tory MP Gyles Brandreth plays… an extravagant former TV personality and Tory MP.
And in the second, Radio Five Live phone-in host Brian Hayes plays ‘down-at-heel’ radio presenter called Brian Hughes.
Brandreth stars in Living With The Enemy, which has his flamboyant exhibitionist character sharing space with an alternative comedian from the Eighties.
The comic is played by Nick Revell, the stand-up who first appeared on Radio 4 in the Million Pound Radio Show in 1985.
Meanwhile, Hayes stars in Not Today, Thank You as a presenter ‘forced by circumstances to live in his grandmother's house with six preposterous tenants while doing his local radio show from the basement’.
The show - part sitcom, part sketch show - is said to be in the silly spirit of Round The Horne.
The cast includes Spinal Tap star Harry Shearer in his first ever BBC comedy - and Sheridan Smith from BBC Three's Grownups. Shearer is in the UK this summer to appear at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Both shows are being taped over the next two months, and free tickets to the recordings are available from the BBC Studio Audience website.
Published: 16 Jun 2006
