Hat Trick plans sitcom based on Fay’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe show

Published Tuesday 1 July 2008 at 17:05 by Matthew Hemley

Father Ted producer Hat Trick is developing a sitcom based on a stage show created and performed at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe by comedian Isabel Fay.

Development executives at the production company have asked Fay to write a pilot under the working title Little White Lies for a proposed six-part series following the success of the show, which was called Altar Ego. It focused on a character called Blodwin, an employee at an old people’s home, who creates a fictional boyfriend to silence a member of staff who taunts her about her love life.

Speaking to The Stage, Fay said: “I have written a pilot episode which, post-Edinburgh this year, Hat Trick and I are going to put forward for a pitching round at the BBC. I would just really like to make it, so any broadcaster would be lovely.”

Fay said the idea was to allow viewers the chance to see Blodwin’s fantasies from her point of view, in scenes which parody romantic movies such as Casablanca and Brief Encounter, reflecting the character’s passion for old films.

She added that she would like to reprise the role she created on stage in the television version, but added no decisions about casting had yet been made.

Fay is currently preparing to take her new show, Don’t Let a Gift Horse in the House, to Edinburgh and is to feature in Dan Clark’s new BBC3 sitcom called How Not to Live Your Life, scheduled to be broadcast in the autumn.