Exclusive FemaleFirst Dom Joly Interview

27-09-2007 11:21

Dom Joly shot to fame as the star of the hidden camera show trigger Happy TV in 1999 but after two series and two christmas specials the funnyman wanted to move on to new projects.Since then he moved to the BBC and fronted the spoof chatshow This Is Dom Joly before going to to revamp the Trigger Happy TV format with World Shut Your Mouth in 2005, also with the BBC.But now Joly is back with Dom Joly's Happy Hour which is a spoof travel investigation show which explores the drinking habits from around the world. Dom Joly took time out to speak to me about his new show, his Trigger Happy past and what he has got coming up in the near future.

How did the idea of Happy Hour come about?

Coz I did a one off travel documentary going to Lebanon and Syria with my friend Pete, which is where I grew up, and we had such a good time and Sky really liked it and said would you do a series. And they said what do you want to do and I told them I just wanted to go to very weird places and kind of get into trouble and they said 'well we need something that is a bit of a peg for Sky' and they said did I have any interests and I was thinking, because I don't really have any interests, and I said I like drinking. And they were like I had just said something genius and I was like are you serious? And I had to ring up Pete, which was the best thing, and say guess what? We are going round the world getting drunk. It was the best blag in TV history I think.

Where did you travel to and what did you get up to?

God we went to all sorts of places. The first place we went to was America, we went to Miami, where we blew most of the budget on cocktails, and then we went up into the Appalachian mountains and drank Moonshine, which is leathal, with like wierd hillybillies. Then we went to Russia where we drank homemade voka which nearly killed me. It's the only time in my life I've had a black out, and I don't really believe in blackouts I think people just say they had a blackout when they did something embarrassing, but I genuinely don't remember a thing. And I was on film.

And how was the experience for you?

It was absolutely amazing, you see I'm a bit obsessed with travelling, and I'm a travel writer for the Sunday Times and I'm kind of making my bid to be the new Michael Palin but a bit more drunk. It was amazing I was a bit warey about doing alcohol because I just thought if we go to Australia to find out about alchol that's a turn up for the books it's beer.