Gavin and Stacey go abroad
The hit BBC Three sitcom Gavin and Stacey has become the most recent British sitcom to be given the go ahead to be adapted for an American audience.
The series will be remade by NBC, the same channel behind the American version of The Office. Steve Coogan, the head of Baby Cow Productions which makes Gavin and Stacey, will oversee the production of the remake, alongside James Corden and Ruth Jones, the show's creators (pictured).
Corden told The Times: "It's really exciting. The idea is that Gavin will come from New Jersey, which has the same relation to New York as Essex does to London. Stacey will be from South Carolina. They meet in Times Square. I hope they keep the British names but they may have to change them."
The second series of the British version is due to start on BBC Three on Sunday 16th March with a double-bill. Corden said that he expects the British version to finish with a Christmas special, whereas the American version will go on, similar to the current adaptation of The Office. The BBC has also asked Corden and Jones to make their own sketch show, as well as writing film scripts.
Other recent examples of British sitcom being picked up to be re-made for American audiences include Spaced and Outnumbered, both of which are currently being remade by Fox. Simon Pegg has been the latest to express anger at Fox for adapting his show. Pegg made a full statement expressing his anger. Part of his statement read:
"My main problem with the notion of a Spaced remake is the sheer lack of respect that Granada/Wonderland/Warner Bros have displayed in respectively selling out and appropriating our ideas without even letting us know. A decision I can only presume was made as a way of avoiding having to give us any money, whilst at the same time using mine and Edgar's name in their press release, in order to trade on the success of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, even professing, as Peter Johnson [president of Wonderland, which is making the Fox show] did, to being a big fan of the show and it's creators."
"A device made all the more heinous by the fact that the press release neglected to mention the show's co-creator and female voice, Jessica Hynes (nee Stevenson)."