Producer pitches idea to broadcasters

The creators of a sitcom about the private life of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard are trying to sell the idea to a UK broadcaster – but based around David and Samantha Cameron.

Quail Television are touting the format at the Mipcom television market in Cannes this week, and say they are in talks with British companies.

Their series At Home With Julia caused anger among some Australian politicians, especially a scene which suggested Gillard and her boyfriend Tim Mathieson had just had sex under an Australian flag in her office. The state broadcaster, ABC, faced calls for its funding to be cut in the wake of the scene – and has since decided not to commission a second series.

Rick Kalowski, creative director of Quail, told The Independent: ‘The format is about the balancing professional and personal life and that applies to different leaders and circumstances

'In the English version you have Cameron's wife, Samantha, who comes from a very affluent background but has to live in this pokey accommodation. The comedy also comes from the tensions between Cameron and Clegg power-sharing in No 10.'

It would not be the first time the private life of a serving Prime Minister has been the subject of a TV comedy. In 1982, Margaret Thatcher’s home life was parodied in the one-off Anyone For Denis?, while Harold Wilson was the subject of the 1969 special Mrs Wilson’s Diary.

And while John Major’s grey home life was satirised on Spitting Image, this would be the first sitcom based around an incumbent Prime Minister.

Should it get as far as casting, Alexander Armstrong has previously played David Cameron in the satirical fictional documentary The Trial of Tony Blair in More 4 in 2007.

Published: 3 Oct 2011