Channel 4 send Sean Lock and Jon Richardson on a Hillbilly Holiday

5 July 2012

In a brand new series for Channel 4, comedians Sean Lock and Jon Richardson (team captains of 8 out of 10 Cats) are kissing their urban creature comforts goodbye and setting off to explore the wilds of the US of A. They're going to see how real men live.

From the Cajuns of the Atchafalaya Swamps in Louisiana to the bluegrass hillbillies of North Caroline to the survivalists of Colorado, there are still places corporate America fears to go. Richardson and Lock will be cast off into these forgotten backwaters and new frontiers - where Darwin's survival of the fittest meets the American Dream.

Lock and Richardson will need to unearth their inner alpha-males and they'll need to pick-up survival skills not featured on Scout badges. They'll go ‘gator catching with the Cajuns of the Louisiana swamps, and pan for gold in Alaska. They'll learn the art of hillbilly hand-fishing and brew up moonshine in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Staying a week in each location, they will need to win over the locals who often ain't too keen on outsiders. They'll need to pepper the gumbos of red-necked survivalists, dill the pickles of Baptist snake-handlers and be educated in the ways of a nudist hog-trapper and a 3rd generation bootlegger.

The 3 x 60 series has been commissioned by Channel 4's Head of Factual Ralph Lee, in close collaboration with Head of Entertainment Justin Gorman.

/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Sean Lock - "I'm particularly looking forward to watching Jon wading through the swamps trying to find a plug for his travel iron."

Jon Richardson - "I am hoping that this show will once and for all put an end to rumours that I am not a real man.   Failing that, I just hope I don't cry in front of Sean."

Ralph says: "Lucky bastards!  It's one of the hardest parts of a commissioner's job to send other people on journeys you'd really like to go on.   But we'll make sure they have a properly hard time and insist that it's all got a profound anthropological purpose."

Channel 4 Head of Entertainment Justin Gorman said "It's a brilliant project that could only happen with both departments coming together. Sean and Jon are amazing talent and we will get to see a whole new side to them."