ITV to air Harry Hill soap spoof

chris

Double Bafta winner Harry Hill is to make a spoof soap for ITV called Soapington Way.

Harry Hill's TV Burp won the entertainment programme prize at last night's Bafta TV awards and he also won the entertainment performance award for the hit ITV1 show.

Hill will play a pub landlord called Arthur Buttons in the new show, and has made a pilot co-starring Liza Tarbuck (as his mum), Mark Benton and Kate Robbins. It has now been commissioned for a series.

"It's a mickey take of a soap," explained Hill, who regularly lampoons the likes of EastEnders, Coronation Street and Holby City on his ITV1 show.

Harry Hill's TV Burp has just finished its seventh run. The writer and presenter said it did not have the backing of ITV in its early days.

"It's only the latest mob at ITV that have got behind it," he said. "For a long time it was going out at 4.30 in the afternoon and then 11 at night. We never really had the backing from ITV for it to break though."

But Hill said this may have turned out to be a blessing in disguise. "It allowed us to improve it quietly."

He added that TV Burp worked because, "it suits my humour but is also something people can relate to".


Source: MediaGuardian

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