Nigel Ng developing Uncle Roger sitcom with Gordon Ramsay
- Uncle Roger, the character played by Nigel Ng, looks set to get his own TV sitcom
- The comedian has teamed up with Gordon Ramsay's production company on the project
- Ng is also developing an animated Uncle Roger series
Nigel Ng is making an Uncle Roger sitcom with the help of Gordon Ramsay.
The London-based Malaysian-Chinese comic is developing the television comedy for his popular alter-ego with the Scottish chef's production company Studio Ramsay (The Fantastical Factory Of Curious Craft).
A middle-aged Southeast Asian man who reviews cooking videos, Uncle Roger has helped Ng amass more than 400million views on YouTube alone since a clip of him lamenting a BBC Food video on cooking egg-fried rice went viral in 2020.
Ng, who recently appeared in Diane Morgan's BBC Two sitcom Mandy and Iain Stirling's ITV2 sitcom Buffering, has just returned from a trip to Los Angeles, where he filmed a guest spot on Ramsay's reality cooking show Hell's Kitchen.
And the pair are now collaborating, despite Uncle Roger having been less than enthused by the Scot's ramen-making technique...
"I've done two videos!" Ng told The List magazine. "One was very complimentary [about his egg-fried rice] and I bestowed the Uncle title upon him. And then in his second one, I was a little less complimentary and took the title back. It's a fun little rivalry, like the one I have with Jamie Oliver. But then he hasn't been in touch."
Ng has also been developing Uncle Roger animations similar to the Mr Bean cartoons that have bolstered the worldwide fame of Rowan Atkinson's character, with an eye to a potential series, which feature Roger's despairing critique of Oliver's cooking:
Ramsay's sitcom career includes guest roles in Extras, The Simpsons and New Girl. In 2009, he voiced and was animated for the Canadian stop-motion action spoof Gordon Ramsay: At Your Service, from Celebrity Deathmatch production company Cuppa Coffee, though it was not picked up by a channel for broadcast.
More recently, Studio Ramsay has been developing an untitled chef comedy with US writer-producers Steven Cragg and Brian Bradley, whose credits include Scrubs and the 2016 television reboot of Uncle Buck.
Ng embarks on the UK dates of his international The HAIYAA Tour at the Glee Club in Cardiff on 16th February. He also wrote and stars in the Comedy Central sketch show, East Mode With Nigel Ng, alongside his former Rice To Meet You co-podcaster Evelyn Mok, currently available on YouTube and coming to television later this year.