Acorn Media Enterprises (AME) has partnered with Free@Last TV to develop the first-ever scripted biopic of legendary comic Benny Hill.<\/p>\n
The biopic, titled Lonely Boy<\/em>, will follow Hill\u2019s life from the mid-1930s through his tragic death in the 1990s. Caleb Ranson (Midsomer Murders<\/em>, Distant Shores<\/em>) is writing the series. The series consultant is Hilary Bonner, who was the co-author of the biography Benny & Me<\/em> with Hill\u2019s long-term TV collaborator Dennis Kirkland.<\/p>\n Barry Ryan, creative director of Free@Last TV, commented, \u201cBenny Hill is a lost national treasure and a much-misunderstood man. Our drama will reignite his legacy and address some of the misconceptions about the man and his material, while also chronicling the dying days of variety entertainment and the birth of television.\u201d<\/p>\n Ranson said, \u201cWhen I was a kid growing up in the \u201970s and \u201980s I loved Benny Hill, his skits and wordplay and especially his songs. Then as I got older, like the rest of the country, I fell out of love with him. Why was that? What happened? Around the world, he\u2019s still revered but here in the U.K., he\u2019s all but forgotten. A punchline to a bad joke. I want to reclaim him from the comedy dustbin of history, to explore the Benny nobody knows, the ahead of his time comedy genius of the \u201950s and \u201960s and why in his twilight years he fell so hard and so quickly out of favor.\u201d<\/p>\n Shane Murphy, managing director of Acorn Media Enterprises, said, \u201cAfter developing a great working relationship with Barry and David during the first series of Agatha Raisin<\/em>, we\u2019re excited to embark on a different project with them. Benny Hill remains one of Britain\u2019s most well-known comics but his tumultuous and often heartbreaking life behind the scenes has never been told. Caleb has written a fascinating first few episodes and the series is sure to attract a stellar cast, led by the multi-layered role of Benny.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Acorn Media Enterprises (AME) has partnered with Free@Last TV to develop the first-ever scripted biopic of legendary comic Benny Hill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":350,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[790,2518],"class_list":["post-9515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-top-stories","tag-acorn-media-enterprises","tag-freelast-tv","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\n