Derek Pander

Derek Pander is a fictional, internet-based, comedy character who presents a series of television programmes on the imaginary UK cable television channel, UK Anguish. He is a loose parody of real-life daytime chat show hosts such as ITV's Jeremy Kyle or the US's Jerry Springer.

Creation and Development

Derek Pander was originally conceived in late 2006 by Kevin Mulroue as Brian Pander. The idea was developed in conjunction with Richard Eckley, who suggested changing the character's first name to Derek. The character's first outing was in the form of an audio file in which Pander was played by Mulroue. Daniel Allen was later brought in as the face of Derek Pander, with the character's subsequent material being written collaboratively or independently by the three Grays-based writers.

Derek Pander has appeared in two short films (written collaboratively by Mulroue, Eckley and Allen) that were shot on MiniDV video and is available on Pander's MySpace page [1].

In addition, a number of Pander-related trailers for the fictional UK Anguish channel have also been created by Eckley and are available through the MySpace page. Semi-regular blog entries written by Mulroue have formed the backbone of developing the character's persona, which is best summarized as being that of an opinionated, snobbish, narcissistic and stupid man.

Another character, Barry Twott, was created by Eckley as a parody of Barry Scott, a presenter of UK television advertisements and best-known for his work on the Cillit Bang advertisements.