Matt Lucas pilots hidden camera prank show for ITV
- The Little Britain star shot the prank show in London earlier this month and is currently writing his second novel
- With the working title Matt Lucas' The Jokes On You, the hidden camera comedy is being developed for teatime audiences
- "Fingers crossed" Lucas said. "That's being edited at the moment, so let's see if the broadcaster likes it and wants to make a series"
Matt Lucas is piloting a prank show for ITV and writing his first novel for young adults, about rival productions of Les Misérables, British Comedy Guide can exclusively reveal.
With the working title Matt Lucas' The Jokes On You, the hidden camera comedy is being developed for teatime audiences, with shooting having taken place earlier this month in North London.
Speaking to Patrick Mortimer and Martin Weavers on the Tom & Dick podcast this month, Lucas said: "I'm currently writing my second novel, which is for teenagers this one, young adults. And I'm doing some podcasts. And I've just filmed a TV pilot, so fingers crossed. That's being edited at the moment, so let's see if the broadcaster likes it and wants to make a series."
The prank show is being produced by Avalon (Taskmaster, Starstruck), which previously piloted a hidden camera show for ITV with Harry Hill as far back as 2007 and made Simon Brodkin's 2017 Channel 4 documentary Britain's Greatest Hoaxer.
One of the podcasts that Lucas is developing is with his Little Britain co-creator David Walliams, with the pair also planning a stage show and in talks with Netflix about a new television series.
Speaking to Ryan Tubridy on his Virgin Radio show earlier this month, Walliams said: "We just had a meeting with Netflix, which is very exciting.
"We've got a few ideas we're developing and it's exciting. We want to do something on stage, we want to do something as a podcast that we've just started working on and obviously we want to do something on TV."
Lucas, who is about to reprise his comic role as Thenardier, "master of the house", in an internationally touring production of Les Misérables, confirmed to Turbridy in a separate interview last month that he and Walliams were having "lots of meetings" and that his second children's novel would focus on two schools planning productions of the famous musical based on Victor Hugo's novel.
Currently playing the colosseum master of ceremonies in the Hollywood blockbuster Gladiator II, Lucas has also voiced the archangel Zachiel in Fairy Tale Forest: Flower Of The Dawn, a forthcoming animated musical film based upon the Brothers Grimm tale Jorinde And Joringel, in which he stars alongside Whoopi Goldberg, Mel Brooks and Jane Lynch.
Meanwhile, he's also seeking to turn his debut children's novel, The Boy Who Slept Through Christmas, into a stage musical.
The book features QR codes with links to 20 original songs, sung by Lucas and others. A 45-minute version of the musical has already been licensed for children's theatre companies to perform.