Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Phoo Action


The BBC have officially announced Phoo Action, their TV series adaptation of Jamie Hewlett's Get the Freebies, a strip he did for Face magazine. One of the writers for the TV show is Jessica Hynes, nee Stevenson, so that's two film ick fan flags up already, while Peter Martin and Matthew Enriquez Wakeham are the other two members of the script team.

Quite incredibly, Carl Weathers has signed on to star as Police Chief Benjamin Benson. His daughter, Whitey Action is to be played by Jaime Winstone while Eddie Shin has been cast as Terry Phoo (that's them in the picture above). Filming started this week under Euros Lyn, director of several Dr. Who episodes - including The Girl in the Fireplace and The Runaway Bride.

In case you don't know the strip, this is going to be the kind of show in which zombies get dusted by some impossible kung fu moves while old school hip hop and dub reggae play and the online editor starts pressing as many buttons at once as they can.

As the two comics are translated to live action this may drift even closer to Scott Pilgrim territory. The movie version of Pilgrim is in the hands of Hynes' Spaced co-conspirator Edgar Wright and I can't help but fantasise about Simon Pegg feeling a little left out and cooking up his own undead chopsocky opera.

Do note that the Phoo Action MySpace page announces not only a TV series but a feature film too. Wishful thinking? Contractual small print? Or are the Beeb keeping the best bit of news back for now?

3 comments:

Mark Kardwell said...

Groovy.

Anonymous said...

REALLY?!!!!!
This is absolutely fantastic news. But how on earth are they going to do it? It'd have to be a way past watershed show, with some very creative representation of characters (gangsters with basketballs for heads, gorillas, etc etc)

This could be the coolest thing on tv ever, or more likely the destruction of another great british design!

Anonymous said...

Jamie Hewlett? The Face Magazine? Live-action? Yes, please.