Poldark's Phil Davis to star in new BBC caravan comedy Static
Riviera actor has high hopes for the new show – which may not be the last caravan caper we see in the next few months...
The BBC is piloting a new comedy called Static in which Phil Davis (AKA Jud from Poldark) plays a man who gives up a top City job to return to live with his wife and kids – only to find that the new family home is a caravan park in Margate.
“He decides to give up the rat race and rings them up and he wants to come back but they tell him where they are living – and his bed is a pull out sofa on this caravan," said Davis whose character Jud is missing from the current series of Poldark. "It's very funny".
The actor, who is also starring in lavish Sky Atlantic drama Riviera at the moment, said he is filming the half hour pilot this summer with a view to a full series commission if it goes well.
The BBC declined to give further production or casting details.
But the intriguing thing is that it is not the only caravan set caper in the works.
As we revealed earlier this year, Brian Pern creator Rhys Thomas is also working on a comedy drama set in a caravan park – but one full of divorced men.
Closely modelled on the experience of Thomas’ own father who moved into a caravan site on what he thought was a temporary basis and stayed for 18 years, Thomas is developing the idea with production company Fifty Fathoms.
Thomas has been given money to develop a script and added that he has his eyes on two Brian Pern stars Christopher Eccleston and Michael Kitchen to play the lead roles.
“I would love to pair Christopher Eccleston and Michael Kitchen up in it because they are my favourite actors,” he tells us.
In Brian Pern, Kitchen played the rocker's unscrupulous agent John Farrow while Eccleston is taciturn "Madchester" rock producer Luke Dunmore who produced Pern's awful LP Shelf Life.
But still it all goes to show - you wait years for one comedy set in a caravan and all of a sudden two come along at once...
