Daniel Radcliffe, Chevy Chase Among Celeb Guests For Sky’s Reboot Of ‘The Kumars’

The follow-up to International Emmy and Peabody Award-winning comedy/talk show hybrid The Kumars At No. 42 will bring the Kumar clan back to television after a seven-year break. The new show, titled The Kumars, is a six-part series that will air on the UK’s Sky1 HD from January 15th. The original ran on the BBC for 53 episodes and was also broadcast on BBC America. There is no U.S. deal yet, but given the earlier show’s popularity and the caliber of guests, it wouldn’t be surprising to see it land Stateside. The original scripted and improvised show centered on three generations of a British Indian family. Sanjeev Bhaskar played the thirtysomething son whose parents support his dream of being a talk show host by building a TV studio onto the back of their home. Celebrity guests were greeted with fanfare at the family’s front door, sometimes making a pit-stop on the living room couch for nibbles (see video below), before being ushered into the TV studio for a chat with Bhaskar while his parents and grandmother offered inappropriate questions from the peanut gallery. The new series will kick off with Daniel Radcliffe, Chevy Chase and Broadchurch‘s Olivia Colman as guests. Returning cast include Bhaskar, Vincent Ibrahim and Meera Syal. But fortunes have shifted and the family now lives in a flat behind a homewares and gift shop that the father runs. Guests lined up for the rest of the series include Ray Winstone, Rupert Everett, Diana Rigg, Richard E Grant, Elizabeth McGovern, James Corden and Terry Gilliam. The Kumars is a co-production from Episodes producer Hat Trick Productions and Avatar Productions. Bhaskar is writer. Exec producers are Helen Williams and Jimmy Mulville for Hat Trick, and Saskia Schuster for Sky. In the series’ earlier version, it drew guests like Alan Alda, Stephen Fry, Jennifer Saunders and Donny Osmond. In the clip below is Nigel Havers (Coronation Street, Chariots Of Fire, Brothers & Sisters) as he makes his way through the lounge to the TV studio: