BILLED as a cross between Benidorm, Cheers and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a new UK series is set to explore the cultural clashes, expat misadventures and illusions of life abroad.
Called Ketchup, the show will chime with every expat who arrives in Spain with dreams of sunshine and sangria and immersing themselves in the Spanish way of life – only to find things rather different.
Starring and directed by Pirates of the Caribbean actor Kevin McNally, also known for roles in Life on Mars and The Crown, filming got off to a good start this autumn.
McNally is joined by Sandra Dickinson, who played Trillian in cult 1981 BBC series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
The sitcom is based on the life of author Joe Cawley, who came up with the name while running a bar in Tenerife in the 1990s.
Originally calling it More Ketchup than Salsa, he soon realised the shortened name was more appropriate.
“I was watching this drunken bunch of Brits trying to dance to Latin music, and I just remember thinking – that’s more ketchup than salsa,” he told the Olive Press.
It’s a title that many a British expat might wryly identify with, as they find their new life in Spain is a lot more like their old life at home than they had anticipated.
The books detail the trials and tribulations Cawley and his wife Joy had to contend with after switching life running a stall at the Bolton fish market for the Canary Islands.
“We didn’t know the language, the culture, or the business,” he continues. “We just thought, why not? Anything would’ve been better than stinking of fish all day.”
He eventually rewrote it as a TV screenplay based on the idea of ‘the expat dream gone wrong’, transplanting the location from Tenerife to Marbella.
“It’s a story that could be set anywhere, but Marbella makes sense – it’s got more money, more visibility,” he explains.
But at its heart, the series also touches on deeper themes, dismantling the romantic notion that moving abroad is a cure for unhappiness.
“Taking your problems somewhere else doesn’t make them vanish – they get off the plane with you,” said Cawley. “Ultimately, paradise is in the mind.”
The show will also touch on the thorny issue of integration and the expat bubbles of ‘Brits in the sun’ – topics that are coming into sharper focus in the current political climate of right-wing populism.
“We’ve got a character called Frank, a dour truck driver from Oldham who was pretty much pissed off with everybody – especially foreigners – from his bar stool in Tenerife, saying all the foreigners should go home.
“In comedy, you can raise topics but not push people’s buttons, and perhaps make them think, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a bit like me, isn’t it?’ It’s like a kind of gentle awakening.”
The project, still in the early stages, launched at the Marbella International Film Festival earlier this month, with the cast and crew already filming test scenes on the Costa del Sol.
They shot scenes on a yacht in Puerto Banus and in the Mett Hotel in Cancelada, Estepona, with backing already pledged locally and from further afield.
It is hoped the sitcom – if eventually commissioned – will not sink like Eldorado, which was cancelled after just one series back in 1993.
Also filmed on the Costa del Sol, it is often dubbed the ‘biggest soap opera disaster’ in history, with the BBC scrapping it after just one year.
It cost over €12 million to make with the main set alone costing €2 million in the Guadalhorce Valley.
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