Frank Skinner is to star in his own sitcom.

A pilot episode of Shane, which he also wrote, is to be filmed next month in the hope of it becoming a series.

His character is not too far from his stage persona ­ a wise-cracking, football-loving and politically unreconstructed minicab driver who's a disappointment to his wife, an embarrassment to his teenage kids, and a liability to his employers.

The pilot episode is being taped at Teddington Studios, south-west London, on July 6, and all the audience tickets were snapped up within hours of becoming available.

A spokesman for producers Avalon Television said: "He's a man for whom middle age is bringing with it some uncomfortable home truths, and unpredictable facial hair.

"Increasingly Shane relies on the solace of the bar of the The Four Feathers, on one side of which is his old mate Bazza, the bar-room philosopher with a unique line in footballing aphorism, and on the other, the object of so much frustrated desire, buxom barmaid Sheila."