Trigger Happy TV 'stood test of time', Dom Joly says

Dom Joly is reviving his old comedy show to bring it to the stage

Trigger Happy TV - a hidden camera sketch show which first aired in 2000 - has "stood the test of time", its co-creator Dom Joly says ahead of a new tour.

The comedian, who lives in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, is preparing for a tour which will see the show revived on stage across the country.

Trigger Happy ran for three series and saw Mr Joly dress up in costumes, shout loudly into a big mobile phone in quiet spaces and play practical jokes on ordinary, unwitting people. He was filmed by co-creator Sam Cadman.

He said: "It was a very unplanned, organic and random thing. That somehow is maybe why it stood the test of time. It's real."

He told the BBC the show is "undefinable".

"Trigger Happy TV was the most punky and amateur thing ever," he said.

"We had no idea what we were doing, and a lot of that I show in the show.

"We found some old tapes - just eight hours of me on Wimbledon Common dressed as a womble having a nervous breakdown, littering."

Dom Joly once halted traffic while dressed up as a snail, crawling across a zebra crossing

Mr Joly said he's tempted to do more sketches at some point in the future, despite some people telling him it would not work.

"The big issue I've discovered with filming stuff now is that in the old days I would film it and that's it.

"Let's say I did the snail crossing the road, one of my favourite ones now, you'd have about 40 people whip their phones out, they'd film it, they'd put it up online and go viral on someone else's YouTube channel."

The show was famous for a sketch which saw Mr Joly pick up a phone in random places

Trigger Happy TV is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and the new tour will see Dom Joly screening clips of the series, unused footage, new scenes filmed especially for the tour and share some of the secrets of how Trigger Happy was made.