Boyz Unlimited is a British comedy series, which aired on Channel 4 from 5 February to 12 March 1999. It was a six-part satire about the music industry. Written by Richard Osman and/or the double act of David Walliams and Matt Lucas and produced by Hat Trick Productions, the plot centered on a career criminal's attempts at forming a boy band. Ratings and critical reception were both poor, and the programme was not recommissioned; Walliams' and Lucas' experiences of working on the show would cause them to refuse to work with Hat Trick on subsequent projects for many years, and Osman's experiences would cause him to lose confidence in his writing ability.
| Boyz Unlimited | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Richard Osman Matt Lucas David Walliams |
| Directed by | Liddy Oldroyd |
| Starring | Frank Harper James Corden Adam Sinclair Lee Williams Billy Worth |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 6 |
| Production | |
| Production company | Hat Trick Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | Channel 4 |
| Release | 5 February – 12 March 1999 |
Background, production, and plot edit
In the 1990s, boybands were popular, with acts such as New Kids on the Block, Take That, Boyzone, and 911 achieving success during this period. GMTV attempted to muscle in with its own boyband, The One, which included a young Billy Worth, and 2point4 Children broadcast a storyline in which the programme's teenage son joined a boyband called Boyband.[1] In addition, BBC One aired an episode of Inside Story called The Band is Born, which launched the career of Upside Down,[2] and then inspired by that,[3] and David Walliams and Matt Lucas used their Comedy Central (then Paramount) comedy series Mash and Peas to lampoon the genre.[4]
After Paramount broadcast the series, Hat Trick Productions invited the pair to produce a six-part series for Channel 4, and the pair began writing the series with the former firm's Richard Osman, with whom Walliams had previously worked,[3] and whose brother was Mat Osman, the bassist for Suede.[5] At the time, Lucas and Walliams were of the understanding that they would star as parodies of Gary Barlow and Howard Donald.[3]
Walliams used his 2012 autobiography Camp David to allege that Lucas and Osman did not get on, and that in December 1997, Walliams, Lucas, and their agent were summoned to the offices of Hat Trick's Jimmy Mulville, who spent half an hour shouting at them before instructing them to leave his office; he also alleged that the pair only signed the release to allow Hat Trick to make the programme after their agent told them they would never work in television again if they did not, and that for almost a decade afterwards, both he and Lucas refused to appear on any programmes produced by Hat Trick.[6]
The programme was shot in late 1998,[7] and directed by Liddy Oldroyd.[8] Filming took place over seven weeks,[9] with Phil Harding and Ian Curnow producing the series' songs.[1] The show depicted Nigel Gacey, a successful armed robber and conman played by Frank Harper, who decided to give himself a year to form his own boyband,[10] with James Corden playing Gareth Jones,[11] a loose pastiche of Barlow[9] Lucas had written for himself;[6] the rest of the band were played by Lee Williams, Billy Worth, and Adam Sinclair,[9] who played Giles Hornchurch, Nicky Vickery, and Jason Jackson.[11]
Having found Jones, he advertises in The Stage for bandmembers, from which he rounds up Hornchurch, Vickery, and Jackson, rechristening Hornchurch to the more boyband-friendly Scott Le Tissier. The quartet sign to a record label, whose executive rechristens them Boyz Unlimited from a list of marketable band names. Further storylines include Vickery's ex-headmistress carrying his baby, Jackson being pursued by debt collectors seeking the return of £20,000, Hornchurch's parents going on hunger strike,[11] and a rivalry with Boys Ltd,[10] who formed just before them.[11]
Release, reception, and aftermath edit
The show was promoted with articles in the NME[3] and The Independent, both of which alleged that Osman had written and produced the show, and with the latter claiming that it was Osman who was inspired by Inside Out.[1] By a coincidence, the show came a few months after the broadcast of Bryan Elsley's The Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Rock Star,[12] and shortly before broadcast one of the tracks covered by Boyz Unlimited, "A Little Bit More" by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, was at number one on the UK singles chart in the form of a cover by 911; Osman used a January 1999 article to note that the song had been selected specifically due to its graphic lyrics being "too tasteless for a pre-pubescent audience, and thus ideal for comic purposes".[1]
The show premiered on 5 February 1999,[11] and received a critical mauling. W. Stephen Gilbert of The Times considered that The Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Rock Star made Boyz Unlimited redundant, and criticised its documentary style, on the grounds that "few actors (certainly few young actors) are adept at playing "real" as if unscripted", and opined that Hat Trick should have "know[n] better than to produce an object lesson in how not to entertain the youth market".[12] Another review, from The Herald described Boyz Unlimited as having about a quarter of the flair of The Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Rock Star,[13] and a Mark Lewisohn review, which described the show as a "savage and cynical attack",[11] prompted Walliams and Lucas to lighten the tone of their subsequent writing.[7]
The show also rated poorly on its initial outing, and it quickly became clear that the show would not be recommissioned[9] after its final episode aired on 12 March 1999.[11] Osman would later release "The Thursday Murder Club" in September 2020,[14] which achieved massive success, and which was described by The Guardian as "the biggest thing in fiction since Harry Potter";[15] in 2021, he used a GQ interview to suggest that the failure of Boyz Unlimited dented his confidence for years afterwards.[5] Mulville later apologised to Walliams after running into him at a dinner party, having recently ran into him in Old Compton Street in Soho while he was with Geoff Posner and Lucas, and later wrote Lucas a letter of apology; by the time of Camp David, Osman had not apologised.[6]
Cast edit
- Frank Harper as Nigel Gacey[11]
- James Corden as Gareth Jones[11]
- Adam Sinclair as Jason Jackson[11]
- Lee Williams as Scott Le Tissier[11]
- Billy Worth as Nicky Vickery[11]
- Jo Whiley as Narrator[11]
- Vincenzo Nicoli as Mick McNamara[11]
- John Hodgkinson as Steve Peebles[11]
- Anna Wilson-Jones as Katie May[11]
References edit
- ^ a b c d Steve Jelbert (25 January 1999). "Boys will be boybands - Arts & Entertainment". The Independent. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
- ^ Cragg, Michael (8 April 2014). "From E-Male to Ultimate Kaos: boybands that time forgot". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
- ^ a b c d Lucas, Matt; Walliams, David; Hilton, Boyd (2007). Inside Little Britain. Ebury Press. ISBN 978-0-09-191442-4.
- ^ "Mash and Peas (1996)". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
- ^ a b "Richard Osman: 'Almost everything fails, so put your heart and soul into it'". British GQ. 4 November 2021. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
- ^ a b c Walliams, David (11 October 2012). Camp David. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0-14-197324-1.
- ^ a b Simpson, Neil (15 March 2007). Kings of Comedy - The Unauthorised Biography of Matt Lucas and David Walliams. Kings Road Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78219-521-4.
- ^ Miller, Cynthia J. (2 August 2012). Too Bold for the Box Office: The Mockumentary from Big Screen to Small. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-8519-6.
- ^ a b c d Corden, James (29 September 2011). May I Have Your Attention Please?. Random House. ISBN 978-1-4464-7433-4.
- ^ a b Oldroyd, Liddy. "Boyz Unlimited - Apple TV (UK)". Apple TV. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "BBC - Comedy Guide - Boyz Unlimited". Archived from the original on 4 December 2004. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
- ^ a b The Times , 1999, UK, English. 5 February 1999.
- ^ "Coils of truth and lies". The Herald. 6 February 1999. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
- ^ "Inside Richard Osman's Mystery Empire". Esquire. 12 September 2023. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
- ^ Edwardes, Charlotte (9 September 2023). "Richard Osman: 'I would have been terrible in MI6. I'm too tall, spill secrets and can't lie'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
