McGowan: Beeb don't want me any more

Plans for Big Impression comeback thwarted

Alistair McGowan says the BBC has crushed his hopes of making a TV comeback.

He said he wanted to make a new series of The Big Impression with Ronni Ancona – but was knocked back by the corporation.

McGowan told the Mirror: ‘We'd like to go back to Big Impression if the door was open. I think the time is right for us to go back to it. But I don't think the BBC feel the same.’

The programme began in 1999, but has been off air for five years. McGowan said they’d ‘run out of people to do’ but felt there was now a new batch of celebrities for him and Ancona to mimic.

Last month, Jan Ravens revealed that the BBC had also secretly axed fellow impersonation show Dead Ringers after seven series on TV.

However, Jon Culshaw is making a new primetime BBC One show, The New Impressions Show, with a cast of up-and-coming impersonators.

Published: 5 May 2009

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