Alan Davies sitcom Whites to be remade in America
- Whites, the 2010 BBC Two sitcom about a celebrity chef, is to be remade by NBC in America
- The new version will be set in a restaurant in upstate New York, and stars Arrested Development's Will Arnett
- Creators Oliver Lansley and Matt King will serve as Executive Producers on the new version
Whites, the 2010 BBC Two sitcom about a celebrity chef, is to be remade in America.
Written by Matt King and Oliver Lansley, the original BBC version starred Alan Davies as Roland White, a celebrity chef who has grand ambitions "but is a little past his sell-by-date".
Set in the kitchen of a country house hotel, six episodes followed the trials and tribulations of Roland and his long suffering sous chef Bib as they try to keep the kitchen running.
The new US adaptation is now in development, and will star Will Arnett, the actor best known as 'Gob' in cult sitcom hit Arrested Development.
The news comes as another project of Lansley's creation, Flack, prepares to debut on UK and US television, starring Oscar winning actor Anna Paquin.
NBC has ordered the Whites remake from Sony Pictures TV, with scripts by Scrubs writer Matt Tarses. He previously created a version of the Ben Miller sitcom The Worst Week Of My Life for US TV.
Deadline reports that the new version will be set in a kitchen at a beautiful restaurant in upstate New York. The trade magazine explains: "Roland White, a disgraced wunderkind of the New York culinary scene, has spent the past three years here in exile, and things are complicated when the owner hires Emily, a new pastry chef who is as gluten-free, farm-to-table and gender-neutral-pronoun-using as anyone on the planet."
Oliver Lansley and Matt King will act as executive producers on the project alongside Tarses, Arnett, Marc Forman and Peter Principato.
The original Whites also starred Darren Boyd, Stephen Wight, Katherine Parkinson, Isy Suttie, Maggie Steed and Amit Shah.
Alan Davies was forthright in criticising the BBC when it cancelled the comedy after just one series. He said: "I got an email from someone I'd never met. I've been working at BBC Comedy for 16 years, so I thought I could have had a bit more than that. It was pretty shoddy."
He also explained: "I was hugely disappointed that Whites was cancelled. It's such a shame for the BBC not to back two young English writers doing their first show. It's inexplicable, as is the decision to cancel Jo Brand's Getting On. They want blue-collar comedy, they say, and they canned the two blue-collar shows they had."
Further details on the new US version are expected to be revealed in due course.
Whites
Starring Alan Davies as Roland White, a successful "executive chef" who has grand ambitions for his restaurants but lacks the drive to see them through as he can't really be bothered doing the hard work. He'd rather his best friend and sous-chef Bib Spears did all the hard graft and he got to take the credit.
First released: Monday 22nd November 2010
DVD- Distributor: ITV Studios
- Region: 2
- Discs: 2
- Catalogue: 3711534163
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