BBC Four orders new episodes

Brian Cox is to return as Bob Servant for a second BBC Four series, with talks underway about adapting a US version.

Filming begins in May on three new episodes, to air in the autumn, with more planned to follow. And writer Neil Forsyth hopes that Hollywood actor Cox can 'crack open his address book' and attract some high-profile guest stars.

Bob Servant Independent finished with the maverick local candidate losing the Broughty Ferry by-election. And after shelving his political ambitions, the second series is titled simply Bob Servant.

The relationship between Bob and his faithful sidekick Frank, played by Jonathan Watson, will now 'drive' the storylines says Forsyth.

The pair are 'getting back to reality. But with the caveat that Bob's reality is a rather unique situation' he says of the self-aggrandising former cheeseburger and window cleaning magnate. 'It's a slightly more thoughtful Bob and a slightly more ambitious Frank. I wanted to examine and test their relationship this time.'

Servant began life as a scourge of email spammers in a series of books by novelist and former journalist Forsyth, which led to the Radio 4 series The Bob Servant Emails. More recently, Servant served as an agony uncle for Scottish arts magazine The List.

With an established backstory to draw upon, Forsyth reflects that 'the by-election was a really useful premise and a great way to introduce the characters. But I felt it had run its course and I wanted to write something smaller, a proper small town comedy. They won't leave Broughty Ferry this time.'

Frank previously served as Bob's ‘director of sauces’. And the decision to expand his role was borne from 'Johnnie arriving with this brilliant character, almost all in his execution rather than anything to do with my writing,’ Forsyth says.

'Frank could easily have just been a really one-dimensional, stupid sidekick. But Johnnie played him with such a funny, weird manner, that as I wrote the later episodes, based upon what he was bringing, Frank grew and grew. And by the end, it was a proper comic double-act.

'Seeing Bob's reaction to Frank is often funnier than letting Bob carry the scene and there's also a pragmatic recognition that the early episodes were hard on Brian because he had so much to do - launching into a long, clumsy speech at the drop of a hat, carrying the scenes and dominating the lines. It's sensible and creatively advantageous to give Frank a bit more to do.'

Forsyth wants Taggart star Alex Norton to return as Bob's childhood nemesis, 'it was really funny watching the two of them scrapping together', and Anthony Strachan as barman Stewpot.

But without the political storyline, it's unclear whether Rufus Jones and Pollyanna McIntosh will be back as the elected Broughty Ferry MP Nick Edwards and his wife Phillipa. Other prominent support roles have included Greg McHugh as a local DJ and Kevin O'Loughlin of sketch trio The Ginge, The Geordie and The Geek as a police inspector.

Aired on BBC Four and BBC Two Scotland, the first series of six 30-minute episodes was 'were actually two commissions shot six months apart' Forsyth explains. And this order of just three more episodes reflects the difficulties in accommodating Cox's and Forsyth's other commitments.

Shooting was originally due to begin in the autumn but was postponed when Conor MacPherson's play The Weir, starring Cox alongside Ardal O'Hanlon and Ballykissangel's Dervla Kirwan, transferred to London's West End, where it is running until April 19.

'I wouldn't have had time to write six episodes anyway' suggests Forsyth’.

His is also working on a show for American TV, Every Other Saturday, with 30 Rock and Community writer-producer Jon Pollack with Steven Spielberg's production company Dreamworks .

The comedy, previously in development with the BBC, is 'about a divorced dad trying to reconnect with his son but only having custody every other Saturday. It stalled a bit at the BBC but Dreamworks liked it and sold it to ABC.'

He wrote the show in the autumn and is waiting to see if the network moves ahead with it.

Forsyth is also developing projects for Radio 4 and production company Objective, and has adapted his first book, Other People's Money, the true story of Glaswegian credit card fraudster Elliot Castro, into a film screenplay.

As such, he is writing the new episodes of Bob Servant 'so that they can potentially end it. But I very much hope that's not the case.

He adds that 'Dreamworks watched Bob, enjoyed it and felt it could work on American cable. I went over just before Christmas and met a few networks. Who knows what will happen but there seemed to be a lot of interest and they felt it could potentially be adapted.

'The thing they're probably wrestling with, which slows down development, is whether they work around the political angle or just take the character. And American TV seems to be keen on having a slightly younger cast. They may wait to see the second series, with it being more personal, I'll write a pilot script and we'll keep talking.'

- by Jay Richardson

Published: 3 Feb 2014