...including a return for Rab

BBC Two has ordered three new comedies – including a return for Rab C Nesbitt.

The shows are a new sitcom from Simon Nye provisionally entitled In My Country, a transfer of the radio show Miranda Hart's Joke Shop and a Rab C Nesbitt special.

In My Country is written by Men Behaving Badly creator Nye with additional material by Omid Djalili, and is set in a run-down guest house. Djalili plays Navid, an Iranian immigrant down on his luck and a permanent resident at the guest house.

The show also stars Stephen K Amos as a Nigerian newly arrived in Britain. Other residents include an ex-Thai bride, and her eight-year-old son; an immigrant from Kosovo; plus, half-a-dozen Polish builders.

A pilot episode was recorded in May, but now a series of six half-hour episodes has been ordered. It will be filmed next year and shown later that year.

Meanwhile comedy actress Miranda Hart, from Hyperdrive, Not Going Out, and Lead Balloon, will star in her first solo television series.

Six 30-minute episodes of Miranda Hart’s Joke Shop, which she also writes, will also go into production in 2009 to be shown later that year.

Finally, Gregor Fisher returns as Rab C Nesbitt for the first time in a decade for a new one-off 45-minute special.

Ian Pattison, who wrote eight series of the show from 1988 to 1999, has produced the script for the new show, to air later this year.

BBC comedy commissioner Lucy Lumsden said: ‘The return of a great character such as Rab C Nesbitt, along with two new audience sitcoms, reflects the wide range of diverse, distinctive, quality comedy BBC Two continues to offer viewers.’

Published: 22 Aug 2008