Ahead of the UK premiere, Pilkington sat down with realscreen during MIPCOM in Cannes to chat about traveling, life changes and his future in TV.
Next month the series will begin airing in the United States on Science Channel with two back-to-back episodes on January 18. However, the series’ Philippines-set finale, entitled “Death,” was postponed after a typhoon struck the country, killing 6,000 people and displacing thousands more. The Moaning of Life was Sky1′s top-rated show of the year, with a total audience of nearly 2.5 million. The show has given Pilkington – who rose to prominence on Gervais’s satellite radio show, podcast and animated HBO series – celeb status in the UK and cult status in the U.S.įor his fourth series, the five-episode The Moaning of Life (produced by Me & You Productions and RoundED Productions for Sky1 and distributed internationally by BBC Worldwide), Pilkington took the reins from Gervais and Merchant and conceived a travel series in which he ventures forth to learn how other cultures handle life’s big subjects – birth, marriage, happiness, vocation, death. In the series, the 41-year-old is styled as an obstinate everyman who reluctantly leaves his cushy life to endure an often cruelly comedic bucket list of globetrotting scenarios dreamt up by his famous friends. Karl Pilkington (pictured) traversed the globe over three seasons as the star of An Idiot Abroad, a travel series created and produced by comedians Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.