In a satirical documentary for BBC Two

Matt Berry is making a Brexit-themed satire for BBC Two, Chortle can reveal.

The Road To Brexit is another collaboration with his Toast co-creator Arthur Mathews and features Berry re-dubbing archive footage of old interviews with questions about European bureaucracy, pastiching the style of BBC political documentarian Michael Cockerell.

The 30-minute special is to due to air this spring to coincide with the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union, chronicling the situation from the 1970s to the present day.

Berry said: 'It's always an honour to work with Arthur Mathews and if anyone can make this subject actually entertaining and look more ridiculous - it's him.'

The spoof documentary was inspired by a rambling 1977 interview given by Billy Idol to Australian television, for which Berry has re-dubbed the questions to the singer to ask about fish quotas and other topical EU bureaucratic details.

Mathews said: 'I'm very pleased to be tackling the monumental subject of Brexit. I'm a long-time fan of Michael Cockerell's documentaries, so I aim to mimic that style. The show will be a mixture of old existing footage and newly filmed interviews. Some of it's real, some of it isn't. There'll be a lot of playing loosely with facts - a bit like Brexit itself.

Kate Daughton, commissioning editor for BBC Comedy added: 'There's a theory in comedy that you can't send up something that's already self-satirising or farcical. These two ludicrously inventive BAFTA winning heavyweights rise to the challenge to provide a comedy tonic on a subject we're all feeling incredibly worn out by.'

The BBC recently acquired the UK rights to the US television adaptation of the vampire mockumentary movie What We Do In The Shadows, in which Berry stars alongside Kayvan Novak and Natasia Demetriou.

The Road To Brexit is produced and directed by Hannah Mackay, who produced the last series of Peep Show, made by Objective Fiction, which also makes Toast and Channel 4's forthcoming Victorian crime comedy Year of the Rabbit, in which Berry plays Inspector Rabbit. 

Berry has also recently taken part in script reads for Vic and Bob's film, The Glove, the pair's road movie about searching for Michael Jackson's mythical training glove, alongside Matt Lucas, Paul Whitehouse, Noel Fielding, Morgana Robinson and Tim Key.

- by Jay Richardson

Made by: Objective Fiction
Ordered by: BBC Two controller Patrick Holland and controller of comedy commissioning Shane Allen
Executive producers: Ben Farrell for Objective and Kate Daughton for the BBC
Produced and directed by: Hannah Mackay​

Published: 19 Dec 2018