Bill Bailey lands new Ingenious show on Channel 4
Extraordinary Portraits host Bill Bailey has landed a new competition series for Channel 4.
Bill Bailey has landed a new Channel 4 show celebrating the UK's "fondness of innovation".
The 61-year-old comedian is set to host the four-part series Ingenious, which has been described by the broadcaster as a "feel-good competition series", and will bring together "creative amateur inventors from across the UK".
In a press release, Channel 4 revealed: "Emerging from garden sheds and garages, kitchen tables and spare rooms, these practical‑minded inventors build clever contraptions designed to solve everyday problems that make life better.
"Over four episodes, contestants compete in a range of imaginative invention challenges that put their creativity, resourcefulness and mechanical know‑how to the test, all in pursuit of being crowned Britain’s best home inventor."
The series will be set in a "large, light industrial space reflecting industrial history, providing the backdrop for ambitious builds and bold ideas".
Bill said in a statement: "I’m thrilled to be hosting Ingenious, a brand-new show that celebrates Britain’s shed-born brilliance, in a collision between practical problem-solving and creative innovation.
"Watching these inventors solve everyday frustrations with clever contraptions is exactly my kind of fun.”
Channel 4's Senior Commissioning Editor, Clemency Green, added: "We are delighted to commission this warm, entertaining competition format from Curve Wales.
"With the brilliant Bill Bailey leading proceedings, Ingenious celebrates the people who can fix, build and improve just about anything, and the distinctive British ingenuity that finds practical answers to everyday challenges."
And Camilla Lewis, CEO and executive producer at Curve Media, hailed the comedian as the ideal "ringmaster" for the new format.
She said: "Britain has always been a Nation of Inventors and its fantastic to be able to celebrate amazing homegrown ingenuity – Who could be better than Bill Bailey to be the ringmaster!
"Thank you Channel 4 – what a joyous commission to make."
As well as his career as a musician and comedian, over the last few years Bill has appeared on the likes of Midsomer Murders, Strictly Come Dancing and Worzel Gummidge.
He has also hosted shows like BBC's Extraordinary Portraits, which returned for a third series this year and pairs members of the public with extraordinary life stories with some of the UK’s most accomplished portrait artists, who attempt to capture not just a likeness but the emotional depth behind each sitter’s journey.
Bill said in a statement earlier this year: “It’s wonderful to be back on the show and to see our crack team of artists pouring everything they have into the work, and the sitters putting their trust in them and really opening up.
“The results are extraordinarily powerful and incredibly moving and in this series I think we see what portraiture is really capable of.”
This year’s sitters included a civil servant who helped stop a terrorist attack, sisters who made medical history when one gave birth using the other’s womb, a grandmother competing in Ironman competitions in her 80s, a survivor of the Post Office scandal who was imprisoned while pregnant, and young brothers living with early-onset frontotemporal dementia.
