The Inbetweeners star Simon Bird conducts celebrity job interviews in his new panel show... Would James Corden make a good president of the United States? Has Louis Walsh got what it takes to be the next King? All these burning questions and more are answered in BBC3’s quirky new panel show The King Is Dead, in which The Inbetweeners’ Simon Bird, Reggie Perrin’s Nick Mohammed and Not Going Out’s Katy Wix interview celebrities for some of the world’s most high-profile jobs.... TV&Satellite Week magazine caught up with Simon Bird to find out more... The King Is Dead is a bit like Shooting Stars... It’s quite anarchic and lively. The idea came from a show I did at the Edinburgh Festival where we had to select a new Pope from members of the audience. We’ve tried to match the celebrities up to the right jobs... So Terry Nutkins was up for King of the Jungle, Graham Cole from The Bill was interviewed for the job of Chief of Police, and Derek Acorah applied to be Father Christmas, because he’s obviously someone who lives mainly in a fictional world. It is exciting to be in a hit comedy like The Inbetweeners... But its success was totally unexpected. I was so nervous making the first series, because three of us had never been on TV before. We were just trying to remember our lines and not look like idiots. I don’t think The Inbetweeners can carry on much longer... The writers don’t see it continuing once our characters leave school, which happens in the new series. It would be a bit contrived if they all ended up at the same university. There is talk of a film, though. My first taste of comedy was doing a school revue and making fun of the teachers... It went down pretty well. They made a DVD of it that sold around 40 copies. I’ve always wanted to write a sitcom... The King Is Dead was my way of getting as close to that as possible within the format of a panel show. I am now writing a proper sitcom for Channel 4 with comedian Jonny Sweet and my Inbetweeners co-star Joe Thomas. I’ve been filming a new comedy called Friday Night Dinner... It’s about a Jewish family who get together at their parents’ house once a week, and the cast includes Tamsin Greig!
