Russell Brand to guest star as a “nutrition guru” in new BBC comedy Hospital People
Sally Phillips and James Fleet will also pop up in the medical comedy fronted by Tom Binns
Russell Brand has been confirmed as a guest star in the new BBC1 comedy series Hospital People, RadioTimes.com can reveal.
Filming has just begun on the comedy, which follows life in the fictional Brimlington Hospital, and Brand is one of a series of guest stars who will appear in an episode each.
The comedian and Hollywood actor plays Tyler Watt, a nutrition guru, in a return to the BBC which appears to finally cement his rehabilitation with the Corporation.
In 2008, Brand resigned from his role as a Radio 2 presenter after he and Jonathan Ross were pilloried for leaving an obscene message on the answer machine of actor Andrew Sachs, an incident which also cost Ross his job and landed the BBC with a £150,000 fine from Ofcom.
Other familiar faces appearing as guests in the new series include Sally Phillips (Miranda), Sian Gibson (Car Share), Alex MacQueen (The Inbetweeners), Mark Williams (Father Brown) and James Fleet (The Vicar of Dibley).
The comedy is held together by writer and comedian Tom Binns who plays a collection of characters connected to the hospital.
These include hospital DJ Ivan Brackenbury, manager Susan Mitchell, porter and spirit medium Ian D Montfort and chaplain Father Kenny Mercer.
Other series regulars include Amit Shah as Susan’s assistant Sunny, Janine Duvitski as Mrs Leydon the Chapel assistant and Mandeep Dhillon as Shaz, Ivan’s trainee producer.
BBC commissioning editor Alex Moody said: "We could not be more excited about welcoming Tom Binns' extraordinary collection of Hospital People to BBC1."
The six-part series will air on BBC1 later this year.