A quick chat with Harry Hill

A quick chat with Harry Hill
A quick chat with Harry Hill

Harry Hill is back on Saturday with a new series of TV Burp on ITV1. TV&Satellite Week caught up with the big-collared one to find out more... Television has changed a lot since TV Burp started 10 years ago... There’s been the rise of reality TV and this new phenomenon of ‘scripted reality’, or whatever it is you call it. Shows like Made in Chelsea aren’t terribly good for us on TV Burp. They’re quite knowing, so they’re sort of doing the jokes already. I enjoyed dragging up to appear in the Sky Atlantic comedy This is Jinsy... I don’t rate myself as an actor. I can’t really do much other than be me. I said to the This Is Jinsy team: "This is all I can do. I’ll be in a dress and I’ll try my best." I used to write TV Burp sketches where I dragged up, but I stopped because I thought it was a bit creepy. It would be good to have a button on your TV remote that makes people get on with it... When you’re watching Strictly, it might hurry Brucie up a bit. Or on Antiques Roadshow it could make them skip to the bit where they say how much something is worth. I’m in talks about putting on a musical based on The X Factor... The idea is to do a TV Burp-style mickey-taking version of it that is also a kind of celebration. The Knitted Character won’t be in it, though – unfortunately, he has a lot of commitments already... He’s now doing Powerpoint presentations on cruise ships about his life in showbiz. But we could get the likes of Steve Brookstein and Gareth Gates involved. The Only Way Is Essex would make a superb musical, too... We could get Julie Walters to play Nanny Pat. But it might be better as a Hollywood film. Thanks to the likes of rapper Tinie Tempah, I’m pleased to see that people are wearing glasses again... At last, it’s time for the rise of the geek. I’ve been a geek since I got my first pair of NHS specs at the age of eight. I’d like to appear on Celebrity Dragons’ Den... I’ve invented the safety cotton bud, and also a big key that goes on top of your bin which, when you turn it, crushes the rubbish so you can fit more in. There’s a new trend for having the hair taken from the back of your head and put on the front... It’s the equivalent of wearing contact lenses instead of glasses and it’s a worrying development.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.