John Hannah To Star In Charlie Brooker's Crime Spoof A TOUCH OF CLOTH!

By Matt Holmes / August 26, 2011

Sky 1 HD are continuing to announce new UK productions and their second of the day is a two-hour comedy crime drama titled A Touch of Cloth which promises to be 'a spoof of every British crime drama made in the last decade.' We would imagine most obviously A Touch of Frost but no doubt Taggart, Rebus, Silent Witness.... all them shows that send people to sleep and will be like a U.K. version of Police Squad. Written by Charlie Brooker (Dead Set) and Daniel Maier (Harry Hill's TV Burp) the one-off show will star John Hannah as the awesomely named DCI Jack Cloth a "maverick, heavy drinking loner who has thrown himself into his work following the mysterious death of his wife", a role that he has probably played straight a few times in his career, alongside the "plucky no-nonsese" female partner DC Anne Oldman (Suranne Jones). Brooker says;

"After you've seen A Touch of Cloth you'll never be able to watch another detective show again. Not because it's a devastating piss take, but because you'll have smashed your TV into pieces in a disappointed fury."

From the press release;

Together the pair investigate a series of increasingly grisly murders and find themselves on the trail of a devious killer. The case leads Cloth and Oldman from leafy forests to sinister lock-ups, from the luxury home of an arrogant TV chef to the cold dissection rooms of vampish forensic pathologist Natasha Sachet (Daisy Beaumont), packing in as many jokes as humanly possible along the way. Their boss, A.C.C. Tom Boss, played by Julian Rhind-Tutt (Green Wing, The Hour) repeatedly demands results, fast. No, faster than that. Faster! Slow down. Not that much. Hold it there. Yeah, precisely that fast.

Zeppotron, Endemol UK€™s comedy and drama production arm will produce under the guidance of Adam Tandy (The Thick of It) and Jim O'Hanlon (House of Saddam) directs.