Born in the U of K (adopted by America)

There have been rather a lot of UK exports to America in comedy terms this year. Here's a round up of the casting decisions so far.

 

Will Mellor, Joel Fry, Clive Mantle, Georgina Moffat

 

Kyle Bornheimer

 

We've not been particularly quiet about our deep love for White Van Man and Bornheimer is a fairly good fit, having already successfully led the cast of the US remake of The Worst Week Of My Life. Still, slightly odd to see the lead character so much older in this NBC version. And The Gays of America are going to be disappointed, given that he's not, well, Will Mellor. 

The well-written UK version was penned by Adrian Poynton, with the US pilot being penned by Bobby Bowman, a former My Name Is Earl staffer. Mellor claimed in a recent interview that the working title is White Truck Dude, which wouldn't exactly be a great sign for its prospects.

REMAKE IDEA: White Van Man means nothing in America and the show will need retitling. So why not go for White van Man, about a Dutch racialist? Just a thought. 

 

 

Simon Bird, Tom Rosenthal, Paul Ritter, Tamsin Grieg

 

Allison Janney, Tony Shalhoub, Aya Cash, Kevin Bigley, Gil Ozeri

 

Only two things to really know here: the mum is CJ out of the West Wing and the dad is Monk. If you've ever seen Juno or Drop Dead Gorgeous or Monk, you'll know how amazing set of comedy casting this is. The kids are fairly new on us, although this Ozeri character appears to be an 'internet sort'.

 

Wise words from Tom Rosenthal on the Twitters about the casting: "USA Jonny Goodman is absolutely stacked. Makes sense. #hench" 

 

Ken Kwapis and Greg Daniels, who are The American Office veterans, are putting this one together. Internet rumours say that HAPPARENTLY the US version is near enough a word-for-word remake of the British one, so make of that what you will.

 

 

David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Roger Lloyd-Pack

 

John Leguizamo

 

Leguizamo is one of those actors whose diverse career means different things to different people. I say ER's Dr Victor Clemente; you say Silly Mail Bird in Dora the Explorer. He has the comedy chops, having already toured his one-man show Ghetto Klown, but for UK audiences there's a lot at stake here. ABC are the most competent US network at comedy so that works in the show's favour.

 

 

Anna Chancellor, Felicity Montagu, Amelia Bullmore

 

Judy Greer

 

Unknown

 

No news on this yet. If it was Judy Greer again then that would really be quite good actually, she seems a good fit for the skittish steel that fits the concept.

 

 

Audrey out of Coronation Street, some other people

 

Ben Stiller in a film version

 

Poor Russell Brand had been attached to the Rentaghost remake but was reportedly dropped after the box office failure of films like Arthur. Now it's been handed to Ben Stiller, and given how he's turned Night at the Museum into a box office monster with a similar Array Of Wacky Supernatural Characters idea, we can probably expect more of the same here.

 

Stewart Lee, Richard Ayoade, Matthew Holness, Adam Buxton

 

Unknown

 

We don't know yet – sorry about that – but it was a pretty stellar UK line-up that's going to be difficult to match. HAVING SAID THAT Time Trumpet was put together during that mid-noughties era when the BBC's CGI always looked a bit dusty and blurry, so that one might get blown out the water. What's Walmart declaring war on Venezuela going to be like?