Rose Matafeo's rejected cosy crime series, "Bleak And Fleece"
Rose Matafeo has revealed that she once pitched a cosy crime caper to television commissioners, a Rosemary & Thyme-style series in which she and Emma Sidi played amateur sleuths "Bleak and Fleece".
The Kiwi stand-up was in-demand after winning the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2018 and came up with the rejected proposal around the time that she devised Starstruck, with the BBC Three romcom "one of the last ideas" that she had on a plane flying back to New Zealand she told The Daily Beast's podcast The Last Laugh.
However, there was also "one that me and Emma Sidi, who plays my friend in the show, tried to pitch" she recalled. "We were a mystery-solving duo in a small town in England. I think it was called Bleak And Fleece. I think it still has legs."
Acquainting the podcast's American host, Matt Wilstein, with Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris' unlikely ITV drama about gardeners solving murders, Matafeo suggested that her and Sidi's concept "has got a bit of that. We'll age into the roles!"
The comic also claimed that she hasn't fully closed the door on reviving Starstruck, though fans may have to wait a while.
"They didn't die" she reflected of her and Nikesh Patel's characters, on-off lovers Jessie and Tom. "So it's still possible."
But "not anytime soon, we need to age like fine wines.
"I've always said Christmas special when we're in our sixties. That's the party line. I was too happy with how we left it in the third series, let it lie a while."