LONDON - British sketch comedy stars Matt Lucas and David Walliams are planning to adapt their hit series "Little Britain" for U.S. television, a spokesman for the actors said on Friday.
The two, whose outrageously embellished stereotypes have had Britons roaring with laughter and sometimes horrified for four years, will appear in six half-hour episodes on HBO, the channel which promoted "The Sopranos" and fellow Briton Ali G.
They have a wealth of characters to choose from, including proudly gay Welshman Dafydd who is outraged whenever his status as the "only gay in the village" is threatened and teenage delinquent mother Vicky Pollard, whose truculent reply to authority has become part of the modern British lexicon.
"Yeah, but no, but yeah, but..."
Whether nicking stuff from the supermarket or swapping her baby for a Westlife CD, Vicky reacts to any accusation with indignant outrage, while filling you in on 'this fing wot you know nuffin about', reads the description of Vicky's character on the BBC Web site.
"We're very keen to take Little Britain to as wide an audience as possible, so we're looking forward to working in the States," Walliams said.
The U.S. series will be executive produced by Simon Fuller, who was behind the Spice Girls and "Pop Idol" and described the new series as "something original and definitive".
"The show is an absolute smash everywhere it is seen and I am certain it is going to be loved by a U.S. TV audience as well," Fuller said.
"Little Britain" started on BBC radio before transferring to BBC television in 2003.
But it remains to be seen whether U.S. audiences will take to characters which could also include a ruthless fake invalid, a middle-aged matron who projectile vomits when her conservative values are offended, a bumbling and unscrupulous hypnotist as well as a grown man whose mother still breastfeeds him.
from Reuters
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