Rhys James writes mockumentary for Reece James
Rhys James hopes to star in a mockumentary with his namesake, Chelsea and England footballer Reece James.
The stand-up has written a script about assembling a team comprised entirely of Rhys Jameses. But so far he's failed to attract the attention of the Blues' club captain.
Chelsea have previously demonstrated themselves open to comedy collaborations, inviting The Simpsons' animators to draw likenesses of Frank Lampard, John Terry, Petr Cech, Eden Hazard and Fernando Torres for a 2014 marketing partnership, while inexplicably missing the open goal of rendering Sideshow Bob-lookalike David Luiz in the cartoon's famous yellow.
James has approached various commercial sponsors of Chelsea to make the mockumentary happen he revealed to fellow comic James Gill on his Always Be Comedy podcast. His entreaties had got "quite far along in the process but never to the point of actually anyone saying yes and making them."
Noting that the dynamic but injury-prone right-back keeps a lower profile than more commercially-minded, "content"-creating players such as Jude Bellingham and Jesse Lingard, James explained that he'd written the script during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, "about me trying to make a team entirely of Rhys Jameses and the sort of ridiculous recruitment methods through which to do that.
"Like just watching people play football, thinking they're good and just hoping they're called Rhys James, rather than putting signs up, trying to get sponsorship from [confectionery brand] Reeses Pieces etc. And [the footballer] only needs to be in it for one sentence in the last episode, that's all we require. It'll be a 10-minute shoot for him. We could just film his one and lock it off."
Direct messaging his namesake through Instagram, James said his pitch was "not even seen".
However, while the defender's "availability is very different to my availability" the creator and star of Radio 4's Rhysearch acknowledged, he might perhaps take encouragement from Chelsea's announcement yesterday that the 24-year-old player's latest hamstring injury setback means that he's set for another spell on the sidelines, perhaps affording him more time for comedy spoofs.
"He seems pretty focused on football" James told Gill. "He's still pretty early in his career I guess, often [brand marketing] comes kind of later.
Besides, "if I was called 'Jude Bellingham', I think his PR people would be like, 'don't do this thing with this comedian, you're doing things for Burberry and Gucci.
"'Don't go and fucking do a little mockumentary with some former Mock The Week comedian you loser!'"
Spurs fan James, whose real name is actually Rhys Jones, was appearing on the podcast to promote his Spilt Milk special, which he also released as a DVD, Live Humour!, albeit only a single copy which he left in a charity shop priced 50p.
Presenting on Ed Gamble and Matthew Crosby's show on Radio X for the last few weeks, covering for Gamble in his absence, James revealed that he had dropped several clues as to the shop's whereabouts and that the unique DVD has now been purchased.