Christopher Guest Jumps Into 'The Thick of It'

Zap2It.com | February 26, 2007

Christopher Guest

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'Best in Show' director helming ABC pilot

What do you get when you team up the creator of "Arrested Development" and the director of "Best in Show" and "For Your Consideration"?

"A comedy pilot at ABC" is one answer to that question. "Arrested" creator Mitch Hurwitz has lured Christopher Guest, the aforementioned director, to helm his adaptation of the Britcom "The Thick of It," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The gig will be Guest's first TV directing work in a number of years. He directed episodes of a short-lived CBS comedy "Morton & Hayes" in the early '90s and filmed segments during his mid-'80s time on "Saturday Night Live" but has not done a TV project since the campy remake of "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman" for HBO in 1993.

His feature credits also include "Waiting for Guffman" and "A Mighty Wind," and he starred in (but did not direct) "This Is Spinal Tap." His style would seem to be a good fit with Hurwitz, who structured "Arrested Development" as a fake documentary, much like several of Guest's movies.

"The Thick of It," which aired on BBC4 in the U.K., follows a less-than-fully-competent government minister and his staff. ABC's version, which Hurwitz is writing with fellow "Arrested" scribe Richard Day, will center on a low-powered member of Congress.

Day and Hurwitz are executive producing the pilot with the BBC show's creator, Armando Iannucci.