Don't mention Eldorado

Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach is ITV's new pairing of soap and satire. It's odd, yet better than you might expect.

After all the years presiding over those miserable EastEnders, former story consultant Tony Jordan is having a laugh at soap's expense. He's set this in Cornwall, a lifestyle as far from Walford as you can imagine - though it looks just as cold.

It's rare that you see something totally new on TV and this two-shows-in-one concept is a real revelation. I reckon you'll love it.

Moving Wallpaper shows the (fictional) behind-the-scenes birth of soap Polnarren - soon to be renamed and sexed up by incoming producer Jonathan Pope (Ben Miller). In Echo Beach we see the finished product, starring Jason Donovan and Martine McCutcheon.

The deeply cynical and very funny Moving Wallpaper is the most enjoyable. Pope rewrites the show with the sole intention of cleaning up at the National Soap Awards. Daft as it sounds, it's hard to care about the Echo Beach folk once we know they're made-up characters.

But I'll carry on watching to see if Pope makes good on his promise to blow up something funny - clinching Most Dramatic Scene and Best Comedy Performance in one stroke.

ITV's high concept soap gamble

Former EastEnders scribe Tony Jordan is about to spill the beans on what takes place behind the scenes of a soap opera in Moving Wallpaper - an ITV sitcom about the backstage egos, affairs and in-fighting on soap series Echo Beach.

Ben Miller Interview

Ben Miller, one half of comic duo Armstrong and Miller, stars in ITV's eagerly awaited new project Moving Wallpaper / Echo Beach.

OK, I'm confused now. Having checked and then double checked the TV schedules, it appears to be true; Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach are on ITV1. Yes, ITV1. They're the people who last year washed us away on a sea of swill with Benidorm and unleashed Liza Tarbuck upon us for Bonkers, possibly the worst yet, conversely, best comedy-drama title of the year. But here we have a pair of interconnected shows with a sprightly idea at the core of their very beings. ITV haven't had that on their comedy roster since Rik Mayall transformed himself into a Thatcher-grovelling B'stard.

Echo Beach on its own is, of course, garbage. A glossy soap-style affair with Jason Donovan and Martine McCutcheon and Hugo Speer and Susie Amy adds up to less than zero, but in the context of Moving Wallpaper (a smart comedy about the making of Echo Beach), it grows more arms and legs than a sand-obsessed, flesh-friendly slab of small screen narcissism ought to. Little moments murmur into Echo Beach and reflect back onto sequences we have seen in Moving Wallpaper as the fictional writers try to make hay on a Cornwall-based rural soap about love and betrayal. Recently hired producer Jonathan Pope (Ben Miller, suitably inspired after his dire sketch series with old buddy Alexander Armstrong) wants to kick some arse into proceedings by ditching the uglier actors and stodgy scripts and injecting his new baby with sex and scandal. It's fruity and fun and so not ITV.

Tony Jordan Interview

The former fruit and veg salesman was the creative force behind EastEnders, Life On Mars and Hustle. He tells The Guardian about his innovative project for ITV and his mission to discover fresh writers