A BRITISH version of comedy series Cheers is set to hit our screens.
Big Talk Studios has asked Simon Nye, the writer known for Men Behaving Badly, to adapt the show for a UK audience. It is planning to pitch the reboot to channels after being allowed to develop an adaptation by CBS Studios.
Cheers, which ran for 275 episodes, was about a Boston bar run by Ted Danson’s character Sam Malone. Kenton Allen, Big Talk’s chief executive, said it was a “huge honour” to be entrusted with the comedy and it would be a “huge challenge” to get it right.
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Allen added: “The British pub is an endangered species, so there’s an answer for the ‘Why now?’ about it. The attitudes of Cheers in the ‘80s are very different to the attitudes of today, so there’s a massive amount of work to be done around taking inspiration from the original characters but creating something fresh.”
Kelsey Grammer and Kirstie Alley were the other stars who made their name in Cheers, which was last on our screens 30 years ago.
British comedies which were adapted and earned rave reviews in the US include The Office and Ghosts. Big Talk Studios is also developing an American version of Channel 4 show Back.
But a string of British remakes of popular US shows have flopped. ITV axed UK versions of The Golden Girls, That ’70s Show, and Married… with Children after just one season in the 1990s.
On Cheers, Mr Allen joked: “I might be insane.” He added that comedy is “prone to failure more than any other genre.”
Big Talk Studios is the producer behind Stephen Merchant’s BBC and Amazon series The Outlaws.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
