Matt Berry reveals Toast of London series three plans
The Channel 4 comedy has just been nominated for a Bafta craft award
After two series writing and playing a bellowing actor in Toast of London, you might think that Matt Berry would be running out of excruciating scenarios – but you couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Every actor’s got some horror stories – it’s quite a big world of anguish and upset,” the IT Crowd actor told RadioTimes.com.
“There's a lot more stories of horrible things that happen in this profession than nice things, so running out of material hasn’t been a worry so far.”
In fact, quite the contrary – Berry has plenty of plans for series three already.
“I’ve got a couple of ideas – he’s going to meet Bob Monkhouse, that’s one I can tell you,” he says. “Apart from that, there’s more of the same. He creates some trouble at the Globe Theatre – the art department will build a model of it, and then we can do with it what we want. Properly smash it up!”
In addition to wreaking havoc in one of London's most venerated theatres, Berry has an awards ceremony to look forward to – together with co-writer Arthur Mathews, he’s nominated for a Bafta writing award for series two of the comedy.
Other shows given nods in various categories for the Bafta Television Craft awards include Penny Dreadful, The Honourable Woman, Strictly Come Dancing and Peaky Blinders with a handful of nominations each. The Wrong Mans, Inside No.9 and The Detectorists are up against Toast of London in the comedy writing section, leaving Berry competing against fellow writer/performers James Corden/Mat Baynton, Steve Pemberton/Reece Shearsmith and Mackenzie Crook respectively.
“It’s a huge honour, and I can speak for both of us with that,” says Berry. “It’s a big deal when you’ve written something yourself, and other people like it.”
He adds: “I wasn’t expecting to get a second series, so that was a massive bonus, and then to get a third, and these kind of nominations on top of that is just extraordinary.”
It's also just been announced that Berry will make another of his parody anthropologic shorts for BBC iPlayer, and he’s working on a new album – but what he enjoys most is having creative freedom.
“Being able to do my own thing is the biggest dream I’ve achieved,” he says, “and getting other people to pay for it? Well, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
The winners of this year's Bafta Television Craft awards are announced on 26th April
Authors
Huw Fullerton is a Commissioning Editor for Radio Times magazine, covering Entertainment, Comedy and Specialist Drama.
