Channel 4 has ordered three new comedy series involving Katy Wix, Josh Pugh, Lara Ricote and Alice Snedden.
Pigeon – which is still a working title – is written by Wix and Adam Drake of the Tarot sketch troupe, and stars the Ghost actress as Kathryn who leaves the big city of Chester to head back to South Wales and the family home she thought she’d escaped.
Waiting for her there is mum Mandy, an attention-seeking dance teacher with a touch of suburban glamour, and younger sister Aubrey, a teenage boy trapped in an adult woman’s body.
Just up the road is her ex from her teenage years, Roy, a big silly dog trapped in an adult man’s body, and her dad, Rhodri, who moved out years ago and only understands ‘women’s issues’ when they’re put in language you’d use about a car.
Wix said: ‘This is a show I've wanted to make for so long. The characters have been living in my head and I can't wait to bring them to the screen. Thank you to Channel 4 for trusting me with this dream! Adam's happy too".
Drake added: ‘I'm so happy.’
The six-part series is being made by Boffola Picture. Shane Allen, its chief creative officer, said: ‘You know those perfect families who are able to show each other love and are there for you when you need them? They’re great for adverts but don’t make for very good comedy.
‘This sitcom instead brings you a typically wonky working-class family awash with off the wall characters. It’s a celebration of everyday eccentricities, idiosyncrasies, and contains at least one idiot. Katy and Adam have conjured up something that brings to mind The Royal Family with their depiction of life behind the front door.’
Charlie Perkins, head of comedy at Channel 4 added: ‘We can’t wait for audiences to see this special show – both a culturally timely and hugely familiar family sitcom. We’ve loved the process of working with Katy, Adam and Boffola – amazing creative brains with tenacity and passion to boot.’
She has also commissioned Pugh’s series Stepping Up, about an over-enthusiastic stepdad bringing well intentioned chaos to his new, and previously harmonious, family unit. Six episodes have been commissioned following a Comedy Blap pilot last year.
The comic said: ‘I'm over the moon to be doing something that very few people get to do in their lives and make a sitcom.
‘I live and grew up in a small town with stepparents on both sides, and I think it's a huge untapped well of comedy. A huge number of people in Britain are navigating the complexities of bringing other people's kids up and I want to capture that in a really funny and authentic sitcom that is also hopefully financially lucrative.
The show is being made by Roughcut TV, where executive producer Steve Monger said: ‘Josh is a brilliantly talented writer, performer, stand-up and king of socials skits. In Stepping Up he’s created a truly original, raucous and refreshing take on the family sitcom.’
And Perkins said that Pugh was ‘An exciting, new, natural-born sitcom star in a simple sitcom world’, adding: ‘There’s something magic in Josh’s naturalism that I don’t think we’ve seen in a sitcom before - he’s magnetic on screen and his writing under the expert shepherding of Roughcut is the perfect mix of hyper silly and hyper-real. A
Channel 4 has also commissioned a full series of flatshare comedy Break Clause, also following a Comedy Blap pilot
It stars Samuel Bottomley from How to Have Sex and stand-up Ricote, and is written by Jess Bray and Alice Snedden, who co-wrote and co-starred in Starstruck with fellow New Zealander Rose Matafeo.
Made by BBC Studios Comedy Productions, it revolves around a couple who break up on the first night of moving in together.
