Yeah But No But Yeah: HBO Sets Fall Launch for "Little Britain USA"

Finally, a bit of news about HBO's US-set transplant of BBC hit sketch comedy Little Britain!

HBO is planning to launch Little Britain USA this fall with six episodes set in America, with sketches shot on location in North Carolina and in a Los Angeles studio in front of a live audience, with segments to be helmed by Michael Patrick Jann (Reno 911!) and David Schwimmer (Run Fat Boy Run).

Series, written by Little Britain creators Matt Lucas and David Walliams, will follow the pair as they bring their hysterical creations--a mix of dangerous eccentric individuals from chavvy ASBO Vicky Pollard and homosexual aide to the PM Sebastian to Fat Fighters group leader Marjorie Dawes and unconvincing transvestite Emily Howard (to say nothing of Bubbles de Vere or fan favorites Lou and Andy)--to the United States, where they will skewer contemporary American culture.

Look for Rosie O'Donnell and Sting to turn up in the live studio segments. Storylines allegedly include Vicky Pollard being sent to a boot camp, Sebastian somehow becoming the prime minister, Daffyd finding himself the only gay at the university, and Lou and Andy visiting a faith healer, along with new characters created specifically for the series by Walliams and Lucas including a gun-obsessed Southern sheriff and Madonna's personal assistant.

I'm very curious to see if the UK-centric comedy stylings of Walliams and Lucas can be translated to the US on HBO so I'll be watching this very carefully... and hopefully roaring with laughter when I do.

Stay tuned.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Ghost Whisperer (CBS); Most Outrageous Moments/Most Outrageous Moments (NBC;); Friday Night SmackDown! (CW; 8-10 pm); America's Funniest Home Videos (ABC); White Chicks (FOX; 8-10 pm)

9 pm: Ghost Whisperer (CBS); Dateline (NBC; 9-11 pm); According to Jim/According to Jim (ABC)

10 pm: NUMB3RS (CBS); 20/20 (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

8 pm: Charlie Jade on Sci Fi.

My expectations for this acquired series are extremely low but I'll do the cabler a solid and check out the first episode. On tonight's series premiere ("The Big Bang"), detective Charlie Jade is thrust into a parallel universe after an explosion while investigating a woman's murder.

9 pm: Doctor Who on Sci Fi.

Season Four of Doctor Who continues tonight with "The Doctor's Daughter," the TARDIS transports the Doctor, Donna , and a very reluctant Martha to the remote planet of Messaline, where the Doctor's DNA is used to create a daughter while a neverending war rages and the threat of genocide looms large. Just why did the TARDIS send them there against their will? Find out tonight.

10 pm: Battlestar Galactica on Sci Fi.

On tonight's episode ("Hub"), the uneasy alliance between the Colonial Viper pilots and the Cylon rebels form a strategy for attacking the Cylon Resurrection Hub. Is this the end of the Cylons downloading their consciousness into new constructs? And what does it mean for the ongoing battle between them and the fleet?

Wee America?: HBO Pacts with Simon Fuller to Adapt "Little Britain"

As Daffyd Thomas might say, "I'm the only gay in the... Peoria, Ill. metropolitan area?"

Variety is reporting that HBO is in talks with American Idol creator Simon Fuller to adapt the wickedly funny British sketch series Little Britain for an American audience. Little Britain creators Matt Lucas and David Walliams have approached Fuller to develop the series for the pay cabler and HBO has confirmed that it is in discussions with Fuller about adapting the show. No further details were released.

"It's not surprising a U.S. take on Little Britain would end up on HBO. The surreal and scatological sketch show, whose characters include 'The Only Gay in the Village,' wayward teen Vicky Pollard and an incontinent grandma, would be a tough sell for the broadcast nets."

I'd have to agree. But even on HBO, I'm not sure how well characters like Daffyd, Vicky Pollard, Emily, Ill. Howard, and Lou and Andy will translate for audiences on this side of the pond. Additionally, I don't think I could watch a Little Britain (or, heck, Little America) sans Lucas and Walliams. To me, it's impossible to separate these two brilliant writer-actors from the characters they portray.

So, what does everyone else think? Will Little Britain fly over here? Or is this another sad attempt to capitalize on the success of a foreign program only to end up bastardizing the show completely (i.e. Coupling)?

From Across the Pond: "Little Britain"

There are very few guarantees in this life. Death and taxes, certainly. Mortgages, very likely. But the one thing that you can depend upon in this life is British Comedy. Whenever things are gloomy or grey, the only thing that can cheer me up is the sight of some loony Brits putting on drag and creating some hilarious television comedy characters in the tradition of the Monty Python boys and Benny Hill. (What exactly is it about British comedians and their tendencies towards putting on women's clothing?)

Little Britain is no exception to this rule. Adapted from their hit radio series, David Walliams and Matt Lucas have created an alternate universe which on the surface seems similar to our own, but just beneath that is a world of psychotics, eccentrics, and psychotic eccentrics. Oh, and unreliable narrators who sound suspiciously like Dr. Who's Tom Baker.

My fear at first was that the show would be too similar to that other British cult sketch comedy series, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but other than the occasional small village setting, the similarities end there. Walliams and Lucas are comic geniuses, able to modulate and change their voices to create an infinite array of characters, aided admirably by amazing costumes and even more brilliant hair and makeup.

Little Britain's denizens are a remarkably bizarre bunch. The real character breakouts are Lou and Andy. Andy is a balding, bespectacled, wheelchair-bound man, who seems to have some sort of mental disability... but in actually is just lazy and capricious ("I want that one!"). Lou is his long-suffering caregiver who seems oblivious to Andy's deceit. I haven't done them justice and seeing them together is a sight to be seen.

Then there's motormouth Vicki Pollard (above), a teenage dropout and young offender who trades her baby for a Boyzone CD; Marjorie Dawes, the vindictive leader of a Fat Fighters group; unconvincing transvestite Emily Howard; flamboyant Daffyd, "the only gay" in a small Welsh village; Prime Minister's aide Sebastian, who nurses a deep longing for the Prime Minister, played by Buffy's Anthony Stewart Head. The less said about creepy women's spa resident and seductress Bubbles de Vere ("Call me Bubbles, dahling, they all do.") the better; her disrobing at the start of Season Two provided the most disgusting sight gag ever employed on the show. (The only near-miss of the bunch is Des Kaye, a former children's television show host who now works in a DYI warehouse center. I just find him more pathetic than amusing.)

Like I said, it's a weird and wild ride through the heart of Little Britain. You wouldn't want to run into any of these characters on a dark and deserted street (or really for that matter on a bright-lit and well-traveled one either), but there's something hysterical and comically rewardng in peeking into their lives for a half an hour. While The Simpsons' Springfield may be a little more colorfully self-aware, and Arrested Development's Newport Beach a touch more zany, if you're seeking off-kilter comedy with a dangerous edge, there's no place better to visit than Little Britain.

"Little Britain" airs in repeats on BBC America and the first season is available on DVD.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Still Standing/Still Standing (CBS); Deal or No Deal (NBC); One Tree Hill (WB); George Lopez/Freddie (ABC); American Idol (FOX); America's Next Top Model (UPN)

9 pm: Criminal Minds (CBS); Law & Order (NBC); Beauty & the Geek (WB); Lost (ABC); Free Ride (FOX; 9:30); Veronica Mars (UPN)

10 pm: CSI: NY (CBS); Law & Order (NBC); Barbara Walters Special (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

Lost.

As if there were any doubt of that. As Veronica is a repeat (again!) tonight, the only thing I'll be watching is my favorite creepy-island-adventure-mystery-drama show. Will Claire remember what happened to her and what Tom Cruise's cousin did to her during her two weeks of captivity? Will Locke and presumptive Other, Henry Gale, sit down for a tea party? Well, I'll be finding out tonight.