The BBC is launching a new sitcom based in a women's prison as part of a drive to bring more female comic talent to the screen.

Killing Time, which launches at the end of March, features 15 characters played by women with little professional experience in comedy - but who responded to an advertisement.

Station controller Stuart Murphy told the Independent he hoped the programme would represent "the next big push into female comedy".

He has also commissioned a new series from one of the stars of 3 Non Blondes, one of the channel's most successful hits.

In Miss Jocelyn, comic Jocelyn Jee Esien (pictured) will play 35 characters in a comedy billed as the "first hidden camera sitcom".

"Female comedy is not something that we get pitched a lot and I don't know why that is," Mr Murphy added.

And, as previously reported on Chortle, BBC2 has given a sketch show to Dawn French's Wild West co-star Catherine Tate.