Timothy Spall, Keeley Hawes and Victoria Wood will star in Sky1’s new adaptation of Raymond Briggs’ Fungus the Bogeyman, part of a big-name line-up including Andy Serkis and Marc Warren.
Spall will play the title role in the four-part adaptation of the story of the green slime-covered creature who lives underground, coming to the surface to scare humans.
Wood, whose recent TV credits include Loving Miss Hatto, That Day We Sang and Morecambe and Wise biopic Eric and Ernie, will star as Eve, an earthy, eccentric “dry cleaner” from Daventry.
Line of Duty star Hawes and Warren (Mad Dogs, State of Play) will play fellow “dry cleaners”.
The Sky comedy drama, which airs this Christmas will also star The Thick of It’s Joanna Scanlan as Fungus’s beloved Bogeywife Mildrew, Paul Kaye (Game of Thrones) as the “Bogeyhunter” and Serkis, who played Gollum in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings adaptations, as the narrator.
Production on the drama, adapted by Tom MacRae, creator of Comedy Central’s Threesome, begins this week.
The book, originally published in 1977, was previously adapted by the BBC in a three-part series in 2004 starring Martin Clunes and Fay Ripley and written by Mark Haddon.
The series will be made by Imaginarium Studios in partnership with visual effects specialist DNeg TV.
Spall said: “Fungus has brought joy to generations of children and I am so thrilled to be playing such a beloved character.
“It’s great to be working with Sky again and the skilled folk at Imaginarium to bring Fungus the Bogeyman out of the pages of Raymond Briggs’ book and onto the small screen this Christmas.”
Sky said the series would “draw from the character of Raymond Briggs’ book, Fungus is a family (bogey) man who has lived underground for hundreds of years, never questioning his own existence … until now.
“Over the course of the series, viewers will follow Fungus and his son Mould’s journey through the maze of life on the surface, while also discovering the highs and lows of their father and son relationship.”
