The X Factor is the ultimate TV rollercoaster: it has tears, LOLs, fallouts, goodies, baddies and fairytale endings. It's a scriptwriter's dream. In fact, it's a wonder that no one has thought of this before.
But the first person to get cracking with X Factor: The Musical is none other than Harry Hill. The comedian says he and his co-writer Steve Brown have pitched the idea to the show's executive producer Simon Cowell - and YES, he has accepted the pitch. Of course he did - Simon gets in on anything that involves making money and it's about time he owned the stage as well as the screen.
Hill told The Telegraph: "He liked it, so we're doing it. It's like a TV Burp treatment, a celebration/p*ss-take, to get the lovers and haters in. It's not caustic, like Jerry Springer: The Opera. That would be quite an easy route to take, but we want it to be funny above everything."
The former TV Burp star is currently writing the script and told The Telegraph he got the idea when: “Watching the last X Factor final, drunk, and thought it was a good idea.” It is set to debut on the West End in autumn 2013.
Harry is also working on a Harry Hill movie and explained: “It’s partly a road trip, with a sick hamster and some badgers involved, plus some songs and guest appearances — the kind of thing I always do, but a bit longer and wider. I saw Pee-wee’s Big Adventure recently, and I thought yes, there’s something to aspire to.”
Harry Hill’s TV Burp, ended in April after its eleventh series, and the comedian admitted in the interview he called it quits because: “You got this new, knowing breed of shows, like The Only Way Is Essex, where the jokes were already built in, and there was no leverage for us. We'd kind of exhausted it. I think, in the end, we just about avoided it going a bit sh*t."
We're actually looking forward to the musical version of the X Factor – we'd bet money on Sinitta, Chico, Jedward and Wagner getting a cameo…