Pilot to air on C4

Caitlin Moran has written a semi-autobiographical sitcom pilot for Channel 4 about a single mother raising six, home-schooled children in Wolverhampton.

Raised By Wolves is described as an 'evolution' of her previously reported pilot The Big Object, about an overweight 16-year-old looking for a boyfriend, after Channel 4 demanded rewrites to the original script.

The Times columnist and bestselling author wrote the comedy with her sister Caroline, and the pilot – which will air later this year – is directed by Threesome's Ian Fitzgibbon.

Filming wrapped recently in Manchester, and Channel 4 described the currently undisclosed cast as a combination of 'recognisable names and newcomers'.

Originally Moran conceived the sitcom as being set in the past but former head of comedy Shane Allen requested it be brought up to date, before he left to join the BBC. Moran is the eldest of eight children and grew up council house in Wolverhampton, where she was home-educated from the age of 11.

Raised By Wolves executive producer Kenton Allen, of production house Big Talk, told the Birmingham Mail: 'We would have loved to have filmed in the Midlands, but there isn’t enough of a substantial base of film crews left in the region.

'There isn’t the infrastructure to support a production or enough freelance staff. They have had to move away to go with the work, to Wales or the North West where all the money is invested. I am all for regionalisation, but the Midlands has been overlooked. Far too many programmes are made in Manchester and the North.'

In an interview with The New Yorker last year, Moran recalled how she wrote her 2011 book How To Be a Woman 'for my sister: a 25-year-old single mother living on benefits, who’s never read a book in her life, and only reads celebrity magazines and watches Jerry Springer or MTV. She has no idea what feminism is, other than something from the olden days that’s a bore.

'The only images she ever sees of women are either of celebrities with “circles of shame” around their sweat patches or berating them for having put on ten pounds or “trailer trash” mums being screamed at by an audience. Her view of being a woman is so terrifying and restrictive.

‘As her older sister, I want to put my hands on her shoulder and go, “The reason you feel weird is because this culture is being rude to you. This has become a very impolite society toward women.”'

Moran signed a separate deal last year with Channel 4 subsidiary Film4 to write a movie adaptation of the book.

- by Jay Richardson

Published: 3 May 2013