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Changing Ends: Alan Carr 'jumped for joy' after casting younger self

ITV Oliver Savell and Alan Carr pose on a football pitch in a promotional image for Changing EndsITV
Oliver Savell (left) will play a young Alan Carr (right) in the sitcom

Alan Carr says he "jumped for joy" after casting the actor who will play his younger self in a new sitcom about the comedian's life.

Changing Ends has been co-written by the 46-year-old and focuses on his time living in Northampton in the 1980s while his father Graham Carr was manager of the town's football team.

Carr will star as himself in the present day while Oliver Savell, 13, will play the young Alan.

The show will air on ITVX from 1 June.

Carr was born in Weymouth, Dorset, in 1976, but spent most of his youth in Northampton.

The six-part autobiographical comedy is described as a love letter to the town and shares Carr's journey through puberty, adolescence and self-discovery at a time when society was less inclusive.

As showcased in many of his stand-up shows, his experience as a gay teenager has long provided him with a rich seam of material, whether it is his sexual awakenings, his daily battle with bullies or navigating the highs and lows of fourth division football.

Baby Cow Alan Carr, young and olderBaby Cow
Alan Carr said the series would depict his younger self "on the cusp of puberty"

The host of Channel 4's Chatty Man said he and the writers of Changing Ends "were worried the scripts were going to waste" after working through about 450 audition tapes for actors to play his younger self.

"I know it sounds like a film and I'm not being cheesy," said Carr. "But Ollie was one of the last ones we saw and he got it just right.

"He wasn't like a seagull operating a fax machine... He was spot on with the intelligence, the timing and everything," he said.

"We closed the door, jumped for joy, and we said, 'We got him'."

Recalling the audition process, Savell, who previously starred in Kenneth Branagh's film Belfast, said: "I'd watched a couple of interviews and some of Alan's shows and I started trying to speak a bit like him."

He added he was worried about embarrassing himself in front of Carr.

"But I went up to the audition room and I felt so at ease, " he added.

BBC/PA Media Shaun Dooley (left) will be playing Alan Carr's father Graham Carr (right) in the ITV showBBC/PA Media
Shaun Dooley (left) will be playing Alan Carr's father Graham Carr (right) in the ITV show

Shaun Dooley and Nancy Sullivan portray Carr's parents Graham - who managed EFL club Northampton Town at their old County Ground home - and Christine.

The show is being developed by Baby Cow Productions, which worked on comedies including the BBC's Gavin & Stacey, Alan Partridge and The Mighty Boosh.

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