Paddy McGuinness pilots Paddy mockumentary for the BBC
- Paddy McGuinness is piloting a mockumentary for the BBC, loosely based around his life and divorce
- In Paddy, made by the creative team behind Meet The Richardsons, the Phoenix Nights star mentors Josh Pugh on stand-up
- Pugh has described shooting the pilot last year as a "very strange couple of days"
Paddy McGuinness is piloting a mockumentary for the BBC about his life and divorce with the team behind Meet The Richardsons, British Comedy Guide can exclusively reveal.
The Phoenix Nights star has shot a taster, with the working title Paddy, directed by Eddie Stafford and executive produced by Lee Hupfield for King Of Sunshine Productions, who make Jon Richardson and Lucy Beaumont's spoof documentary for Dave.
Stand-up Josh Pugh, who played a version of himself in the pilot, shot last year, told Adam Rowe and Dan Nightingale on their Have A Word podcast that the filming, at an Airbnb standing in for McGuinness' house, was a "very strange couple of days".
The former Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee explained: "Paddy McGuinness is doing a spoof documentary of his life and in that documentary he is mentoring me as a stand-up. It's about his divorce."
McGuinness, who is embarking on his first stand-up tour in eight years in October, has experienced a difficult relationship with the BBC in recent times, with the corporation's former flagship shows A Question Of Sport and Top Gear axed during his hosting tenure.
The presenter and actor got his big television break on the mockumentary series That Peter Kay Thing in 2000 on Channel 4, with that show spawning the successful spin-off sitcom Phoenix Nights and the follow-up, Road To Nowhere, starring his and Kay's bouncer characters, Maxwell "Max" Bygraves and Patrick "Paddy" O'Shea.
More recently, he made two series of spoof movie sketches for The Keith & Paddy Picture Show on ITV between 2017 and 2018, with Leigh Francis in his guise as Keith Lemon.
McGuinness married his wife Christine in 2011. But the couple, who have three children, separated in 2022. His Nearly There tour begins at King George's Hall in Blackburn on 24th October.
Since it was founded in 2019 by former BBC commissioning editor for entertainment Sohail Shah, Manchester-based King Of Sunshine has struck up a successful working relationship with Richardson and Beaumont.
In addition to the upcoming fifth series of Meet The Richardsons, which depicts an exaggerated version of the comedians' marriage, the production company has also made their Channel 4 panel show, Jon & Lucy's Odd Couples, and the comic travelogue pilot, Jon Richardson: Take My Mother-In-Law, which followed Richardson and Gill Adams, Beaumont's mother, around Spain as she considered emigrating.