Why? The idea that the shared language with the original was the key to its success is tempting but probably wrong plenty of US remakes of British shows have sunk without a trace. Simply hoping that the show should translate abroad because the setting and characters were strong seems to have been foolhardy.īut the US remake worked. "There's a real obsession with formatting because it would really suit television if the format was the answer," says Morris. The magic of the original – Ricky Gervais's quintessential office comedy set in the dreary nowhere of Slough – seems to have been difficult to recapture. With some exceptions – Germany, five seasons the US, nine – these foreign remakes only lasted one season. A strange and calculated risk has traditionally been undertaken with translating shows: that viewers in another country are more likely to watch a brand-new remake rather than the critically lauded masterpiece on which it's based.įor a show like The Office, arguably the most successful British comedy of the last 30 years, this risk was taken in 11 countries. He explains that the US tried to remake Fawlty Towers, John Cleese and Connie Booth's seminal 1970s BBC sitcom about an angry hotelier, because Americans weren't likely to watch a show from the UK. "Comedy was always very parochial very tribal," says Joel Morris, a British comedy writer who has written on both Paddington films as well as for people like Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker and comedy duo David Mitchell and Robert Webb.
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There is a good reason that TV comedy remakes have so often been attempted, for all the their proven pitfalls.
Will the comedy translate? Will it be too French? Too English? Not English enough? Not French enough? Set in London, it will not just be judged on its own merits, but will be compared with the show from which it is translated. These include a British remake, confusingly called Ten Per Cent rather than Call My Agent!, which premieres on Amazon this week. Audiences in the UK and US fell for its stylish, perhaps stereotypically French rhythms, as did other countries: around half a dozen remakes are in the offing. Seeing how popular it was, Netflix bought it in 2015, renamed it Call My Agent!, and raised the profiles of its core cast – Camille Cottin, Grégory Montel, Thibault de Montalembert and Fanny Sidney in particular – which, in turn, raised the show's profile abroad.
Jean Reno, Jean Dujardin and even Sigourney Weaver are some of the many stars who signed up to play themselves. Its episodes, which could veer between farcical miscommunication and affecting drama, also featured episode-long cameos from famous actors as the agency's various clients. Exploring a world brimming with gossip, power plays and romance, the show became a hit in France. One of the most popular French shows in recent years has been France Télévisions' Dix Pour Cent, a comedy about the frenetic world of Parisian showbusiness agents. The TV shows that reveal the real France The rights to the show could be sold to networks abroad – like Frasier being endlessly repeated on the UK's Channel 4, to choose an old-school example – but what if they could do one step better? What if another country were so enamoured with a show that they wanted to buy the concept and remake it themselves? For better or worse, when a show does phenomenally well in its own territory, TV executives start getting itchy fingers and surveying a map of the world. But when it comes to remaking a beloved programme in another country, they are raised that little bit higher. It is expensive to make, and, as the recent news about Netflix has shown, people can cancel subscriptions in a heartbeat. The stakes are always high in television.
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