A top TV and movie producer has announced plans to revive a classic British TV sitcom, but with a radical update to reflect contemporary Britain. “I know that everyone will try to dismiss this as yet another doomed exercise in nostalgia, trying to bring back a tired old format, best remembered now for its rampant sexism and corny humour,” Cohen Cohen of Cohen International Productions told Furtive films Monthly magazine. “But believe me, our new version of seventies sitcom On the Buses has a radical makeover, ripped directly from the headlines!” Indeed, Cohen’s proposed version of the old show will be less a sitcom than a dark comedy drama with satirical elements. “This time around we won’t be going for those simplistic belly laughs based around jokes about minorities, mothers-in-law and women,” he explains. “Oh no, in our version the lovable heroes of the original, bus driver Stan and his conductor Jack, are complex anti-heroes – this time around they are dealing drugs from their bus!” Cohen claims that he took his inspiration for this reworking of On the Buses from real life. “I kept seeing this trailer for a TV documentary about ‘Britain’s Biggest Cocaine Dealer’ who, apparently, was a bus driver, a job that allowed him to make lots of street-level contracts for distributing his shit,” he reveals. “Now, I never actually watched it because it was on a subscription channel and I just can’t be arsed to pay them for content.  But that trailer set me to thinking about another possible ‘re-imagining’ of a classic TV series for the modern era.”

Cohen is keen to avoid the usual pitfalls of updating and re-adapting classic films and TV shows for streaming platforms. “They usually just overstretch the material to the point of boredom. I mean, they’ll take something that made a perfectly decent ninety minute movie and expand it into a thirteen hour long TV series with most the episodes being nothing other than expensive padding that might look good, but are utterly empty,” he opines. “Worse than that, these re-imagining are usually pretentious and po-faced, completely missing the point of the original.” The producer promises that his reworking of On the Buses won’t fall into any of these traps. “We’re very much tending toward the idea of retaining the thirty minute per episode format,” he assures fans of the original series. “Plus, we definitely want to keep the laughs, just with darker, more ironic, humour that reflects the underlying gravity of the subject matter.” To prove his point, Cohen used his magazine interview to outline the series basic scenario. “The format is basically the same: Stan and Jack are a notoriously lazy bus crew. But in our version, they are always late because they are always having to make diversions from their route to pick up new customers and drop off more smack and crack,” he says. “That and the fact that they are off of their faces on their own product half the time.  Cue hilarious scenes of the bus weaving down the street, with a spaced out Stan at the wheel, mounting the pavement and wiping out several people at a bus stop. The episode could continue with Stan and Jack loading the bodies on the bus and going off route to the middle of nowhere to bury them in unmarked graves.”

Cohen has also promised that another essential ingredient of the original series will survive intact into the new version: bus inspector ‘Blakey’ Blake’s constant attempts catch Stan and Jack out. “This time, of course, it isn’t just about their poor time-keeping and constant sexual harassment of female passengers and bus company employees, but because he knows that they are involved in the drugs trade, but just can’t prove it,” he says. “So, he won’t just be carrying out spot checks on their route, but will be springing drug tests at the depot, as well.  Which could lead to yet more hilarious scenes of Jack and Stan bribing other staff to provide them with fake blood and urine samples.  It could all go wrong when Jack uses a sample from one of the ‘birds’ and the results come back positive for pregnancy! You see, this stuff practically writes itself once you’ve established the initial idea!” Indeed, Cohen is already brimming over with story ideas. “Another plot could involve a rival drug crew working out the depot, culminating with a running gun battle between their two double decker buses as they career down the High Street, Stan and Jack and their rivals having packed out their respective buses with gangs, all armed to the teeth and occupying window seats,” he enthuses. “Hell, you could even have a scenario where Stan’s brother-in-law Arthur’s new job turns out to be with the drug squad.  Much hilarity ensues as Olive finds herself torn between loyalty to her brother and loyalty to Arthur.”

Cohen is hoping to start shooting a pilot episode to show to potential buyers as soon as possible. “We’ve already been looking at possible casting,” he reveals. “Tom Hardy is a definite possibility for Stan, while Tom Hiddleston has been pencilled in for Jack. For Blakey, though, we’re going for a radical re-imagining of the character – instead of Stephen Lewis’ dated portrayal of him as a miserable jobsworth with a Hitler moustache, we’re thinking of a harder edged, two-fisted, crusader for justice type. Right now, we’re looking at Hong Kong action star Chow Yun Fat to play him as this cool, toothpick chewing dude in shades who can tote a pair of .45 automatics while leaping through the air.” Cohen even outlined the basic plot of the pilot for the magazine. “When Blakey gets too close to the truth, Jack and Stan try to assassinate him with a drive by shooting from their bus, as the inspector waits at a bus stop,” he says.  “It could all be shot in slow motion, Sam Peckinpah style, with Jack opening up with an Uzi from the rear platform of the bus, while Stan looses off from his .45 automatic from the cab window, the glass in the bus shelter shattering under a hail of bullets as Blakey dives for cover, drawing his own guns.  Although he survives the shooting – despite being riddled with bullets – Blakey can’t make a positive identification of the shooters, or even the bus, Stan and Jack having cunningly changed the route number and destination boards.  Which, obviously, sets up the dynamic for the rest of the series.”

Cohen dismisses critics who have claimed that he has missed the boat with his revival plans, that the market has become oversaturated with pointless remakes and re-imaginings of classic TV and movie properties. “Look, we’re doing something different here, a combination of action and dark comedy that honours the original while making it relevant for modern audiences,” he contends. “As for those saying that by making Stan and Jack drug dealers, we’re rendering two classic and beloved comedy characters unsympathetic and villainous, we’ll also be showing how the poor wages paid by the bus company have, in the face of the cost of living crisis, forced these two otherwise decent working class guys to turn to crime in order to make ends meet. See, social commentary as well.” Cohen also has a contingency plan in place in the event that he is unable to sell the pilot – he plans to expand it into a feature film. “Let’s not forget that, in the seventies, On the Buses was spun off into three highly successful movies – even without the drugs and violence of our version,” he says. “Which is why I’m hoping to secure the services of a top movie director like John Woo to shoot the pilot.”