Harry Enfield to play Sir Richard Branson in new spoof comedy

Harry Enfield will be donning a lustrous, flowing wig to play businessman, hot air balloonist and space travel magnate Sir Richard Branson for a new spoof comedy show for the BBC.

Called Island of Dreams, it will see Enfield’s Branson inviting celebrities to his private residence Necker Island, in the British Virgin Islands, to have their problems solved, according to the Radio Times.

The show has been penned by Bert Tyler Moore and George Jeffrie, the writers behind The Windsors on Channel 4.

They also created the satire Star Stories with comedian Kevin Bishop.

The BBC says that the show ‘draws heavily on a rich heritage of island-set TV shows, from Fantasy Island to Lost to Thunderbirds’.

It finds Branson ‘solving the problems of our most-loved and messed-up celebrities while they’re enjoying some well-deserved island luxury…but does Sir Richard have a more important masterplan – a dark secret involving interplanetary travel?’

Island of Dreams will shoot a pilot episode first, and if successful, a series would then follow on BBC2.

Branson bought Necker in 1978, and it’s played host to the likes of Kate Winslet – who famously ushered Branson’s 90-year-old mother to safety when a lightening storm burned down the island’s main house – and Barack and Michelle Obama, who retreated there after Obama’s two terms as US president.

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