A FORMER soap actor from Hull has completed the pilot of the first show he has written.
Andy Newton-Lee, who also stars in British Andy, filmed the show in Los Angeles last week.
It also stars Charlie Brooks, who played Janine Butcher in EastEnders and Michael Greco, who played Beppe di Marco in the soap.
"It was so exciting to see it all come together," said Andy, who has previously appeared in Hollyoaks, Coronation Street and Casualty.
"The idea has been two years in the making, but I suppose you could say I have ten years of material and stories from living in LA. The response we've had so far has been pretty overwhelming."
The show is based around a fictional relocation service that brings UK stars to LA.
Andy, who in real life runs a relocation service called Next Stop LAX, for stars who want to establish themselves in the US, said: "We shot straight for five days.
"I forgot how exhausting all this was. I haven't acted for five years. Not only that, I'm executive producer, so once the cameras stopped rolling, we would sit and watch the footage till 1am, then be back up by 6am.
"The biggest challenge was getting everyone's schedules together.
"We originally had Patsy Palmer from EastEnders playing our 'big celebrity' and then Patsy became unavailable.
"I'd written the episode around Patsy's arrival, so I was a little taken aback when we couldn't make it work.
"I then had the idea of asking Charlie Brooks, who agreed to step in."
Despite the setback and having to rewrite the scripts, Andy is pleased with how it's gone.
"We did have to do some really major rewrites, so when I saw everyone come together on set it was quite a fulfilling moment," he said.
"We shot it like The American Office in a mockumentary style, with looks to camera and stuff."
With filming for the pilot complete, the next step is for a network to agree to put it on.
Andy, who was brought up in north Hull, said: "We've already had so much interest, so it's a case of seeing which network we can get it on.
"I have enough connections in the industry to get this series on screen.
"I suppose I'm hoping the talent and comedy shine through.
"We laughed for the full duration of the shoot and you can see so many powerful comedic moments. It's just so exciting.
"Nothing has fulfilled me this much in so many years."
Andy hopes this could be the start of him creating TV and film full-time.
"I'm hoping I can hand my Visa business over to my dad, who works with me, and work on creating TV and film full-time," he said. "Who knows?
"My life has taken some pretty unimaginable turns but I'm just enjoying every moment."
