USA version of Little Britain delayed

The new American version of the popular BBC sketch show Little Britain has been delayed due to the recent writers' strike.

Matt Lucas told BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat that he and comedy partner Walliams are "members of the Writers Guild of America so our show's on hold. We obviously didn't want to break the strike, so we're just waiting for them to reach an agreement."

Lucas went onto say that's whilst the series, due to be broadcast on HBO, was "pretty much written," that "when you're in rehearsal you change things and write new sketches, and when you're on the set you change things."

Whilst a title for the new show has not been decided on, Lucas also told the radio news bulletin that the USA series would in some way say "this is effectively series four. But there's a kind of way into it if you've never seen the show before. I can't tell you too much about the characters because I don't want to ruin it. But we've worked really hard on it, we've been writing solidly for about eight months, and we're really excited about it."

Members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) began their industrial action on the 5th November in a bid to get more money from DVD and internet sales. The strike is now beginning to have an impact upon production schedules - the following is a list of comedy and comedy dramas that are currently affect by the strike. The list shows how many new episodes each has left and the UK channel(s) which broadcast the programme over here (obviously being behind America there are more un-seen episodes over here than shown on this list):

No episodes left
The Office – An American Workplace (BBC Three)
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (More 4)

2 episodes left
My Name is Earl (Channel 4)
Two and a Half Men (Five, Paramount Comedy One)

3 episodes left
Desperate Housewives (Channel 4)
How I Met Your Mother (BBC Two)

5 episodes left
House (Five)
Ugly Betty (Channel 4)

7 episodes left
Family Guy (BBC Two, FX)

10 episodes left
The Simpsons (Sky One, Channel 4)

11 episodes left
King of the Hill (FX)

13 episodes left
American Dad! (BBC Two)

15 episodes left
Everybody Hates Chris (Five, Paramount Comedy Two)