In Review

09 January 2009 12:34 BST

Kevin Bishop: Rapid-fire sketches are value for money

TV comedian Kevin Bishop has said his new sketch show is a reaction to disappointing equivalents in recent years.

The Star Stories actor has been given his own show - unsurprisingly entitled The Kevin Bishop Show - and viewers of its Friday July 25th pilot will see a dizzying 43 sketches in 24 minutes.

And according to Bishop, who made his breakthrough as Jim Hawkins in 1996's Muppet Treasure Island, the rapid-fire nature of his Channel 4 comedy was an effort to give audiences as much comedy as possible.

"A lot of the public are getting short-changed with sketch shows," he told inthenews.co.uk at the launch of The Kevin Bishop Show.

"The performances were brilliant quality but people were seeing the same joke told six times in a series and a lot of it was overlong.

"We felt it was time to give people a bit more for their money."

He continued: "As performers we wanted to play as many characters as we could so the best way to do that was to shorten the sketches right down."

Lee Hupfield, who produced and co-wrote the show with Bishop, added: "It's an issue of TV budgets. With Little Britain, Mitchell and Webb, they're great sketch shows but have much more resources than we do.

"We'd rather film [short sketches] while Kevin's having a wig fitted for a new sketch and get a five-second laugh than just stand around waiting."

The Kevin Bishop Show premieres at 22:00 BST on Channel