Fancy seeing Noel Fielding play Alice Cooper or Jack Whitehall as Marc Bolan?
Sky Arts’ comedy show Urban Myths returns for a second season with more outlandish stories about celebrities, including Marc Bolan's initial meeting with David Bowie
The premise of Sky Arts’ comedy show Urban Myths is delicious: it recreates probably apocryphal stories about unusual celebrity encounters. For example, the first series included episodes telling how Samuel Beckett ended up car-pooling with Andre the Giant and how Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson and Marlon Brando supposedly took a road trip out on New York on the day of 9/11.
That last episode didn’t air because Jackson’s family objected to the white-washed casting – Joseph Fiennes played the king of pop. While there doesn’t appear to be any racially insensitive casting this time around, there are a few strange choices to be found in the three episodes announced so far.
We’re told Noel Fielding will play Alice Cooper in the story of when the godfather of shock rock met surrealist king Salvador Dali. The Mighty Boosh star and current Bake-Off host will be joined by David Suchet, who’s swapping Poirot’s mustache for that of the Spanish surrealist.
Yes! #UrbanMyths will return in 2018 and one very tall tale will be The Dali And The Cooper, starring @David_Suchet & @noelfielding11 as Salvador Dali & @RealAliceCooper! pic.twitter.com/Lbf67ojKmY
— Sky Arts (@SkyArts) November 21, 2017
More objectionable might be the casting of Jack Whitehall as T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan – Whitehall has some charms as a standup, but no-one is going to mistake him for a charismatic glam rock figure. The Bolan episode also features another dear-departed music legend: David Bowie. The episode will show Bowie and Bolan striking up a friendship while painting their shared manager’s office in the days before they became world famous music icons. Luke Treadaway plays Bowie.
Another likely story coming your way in #UrbanMyths is When Bowie Met Bolan, starring @LukeTreadaway as David Bowie and @jackwhitehall as Marc Bolan. Can't wait! #SkyShowcase pic.twitter.com/uQ457aZOFQ
— Sky Arts (@SkyArts) November 21, 2017
The third episode in the new series is called Public Enemy, and tells the urban myth of how the hip-hop revolutionaries found themselves stranded in Devon after their tour bus left them behind and got a lift from a local in his Ford Focus so they could make their show in Sheffield. Philip Glenister will play Kev Wells, with Peep Show's Paterson Joseph as Chuck D and Abdul Salis as Flavor Flav.
Urban Myths screens on Sky Arts in 2018