Matt Lucas helps Hartlepool teaching assistant's Baked Potato Song video go viral

Jay Mullen, who works at Lynnfield Primary School, shot a video to the lyrics of The Baked Potato song by comedian Matt Lucas.

The Little Britain star wrote the song to help get across messages around staying at home and social distancing with people all over the country making and sharing their own videos to the song online.

Jay’s has been widely viewed after his fiancee Joanne Tapping told Matt about it on Twitter.

He said he was “transfixed” by it and shared it for his thousands of followers to see.

Dozens of them then retweeted it meaning it would be seen by their followers.

Jay’s video features a variety of vegetable characters on sticks dancing to the song in front of a picture of a rainbow.

He said: “I just made it to engage with the children who aren’t at school at the moment and give them the right messages at this time.

“I was blown away that Matt shared it. It was just a bit of fun for the kids at school, so for him to like it and it to take off like it has is really great.”

The quirky song has been so popular that Matt is set to release it as a single with the proceeds going to the FeedNHS campaign to provide care workers with hot meals at work.

It is a revised version of a song he wrote 20 years ago for the madcap quiz Shooting Stars.

Speaking on Channel 4’s The Steph Show this week, he said: “A week ago I was watching the news and was seeing that people were still going out and thought it was quite shocking.

“The idea came to me to rewrite the baked potato song and update the lyrics and have advice that’s relevant to the situation that we are all now in.”

A video of Matt singing the song has been watched more than three million times.

Watch Jay’s version at Lynnfield’s Facebook page.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper.

Thank you