James Buckley on Zapped

James Buckley has been speaking about his new fantasy comedy series Zapped for the first time – saying it’s nothing like The Inbetweeners.

In the three-part series for Dave he plays Brian Weaver, an online data marketing assistant who receives an amulet that transports him to a magical other world… when he was expecting a phone charger. ‘I'm happy someone's finally written about that!’ he said.

‘Zapped looks amazing,’ he added. ‘It’s  another universe they’ve created, and the way people talk and behave normally within it is where the comedy is. They have normal problems but they are in this Lord Of The Rings world.’

Speaking at the UKTV Live event this morning, Buckley said there was another advantage to a fantasy comedy. ‘With The Inbetweeners, on that very first day of filming, I knew it was going to end one day because we're going to get old. But with this I can age. It's limitless, the possibilities.’

Buckley also said Dave Lambert, Zapped’s director, was the polar opposite personality to The Inbetweeners’ co-creator Iain Morris.

‘Iain Morris is one of the most anxious, nervous, pessimistic people I've ever met,’ he said. ‘But Dave had energy all the way through. If Dave stops smiling I thought, "Maybe I've done something really really wrong."’

And he joked: ‘He was so pleased to be there, he had his picture taken with all the cast…’

He also praised the Dave channel for commissioning three 40-minute episodes  – which will air from October 13 – rather than a one-off pilot. ‘I’ve never felt so supported by the network before,’ he said. ‘They understand that it's an unusual idea that might take more than one episode for people to get. It shows ambition.’

The series also stars Game Of Thrones and former Dennis Pennis actor Paul Kaye, who coined the portmanteau ‘tri-lot’ to refer to the the three-part pilot.

He said of his warlock character Howell: ‘I was inspired by Wizard the 70s prog rock bang. I'm a cross between Dumbledore and Tommy Cooper with a Timothy Leary diet.’

And he joked that the difference been Zapped and Game Of Thrones was that ‘ I have high hopes for this programme.

The series also stars Ken Collard as Steg (‘his mother was a giant and his father was a dwarf… he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder’); Sharon Rooney as soothsayer Barbara; and former Brookside star Louis Emerick as innkeeper Herman (‘I thought this was a documentary as we’ve still got pubs like that in Liverpool’)

Steve Coogan, whose production company Baby Cow is making the show, has a cameo, and

Ricky Grover, Sally Phillips and Tony Way also guest star, it was revealed today.

Zapped! has been written by Dan Gaster, one of the core writing team on Have I Got News For You, with his regular collaborators Will Ing and Paul Powell.

Published: 6 Sep 2016