Questions have been raised over the future of Vittorio Angelone’s sitcom debut after the BBC said it was ‘actively considering’ concerns raised over his rape joke.

The comedian has filmed the BBC Northern Ireland comedy Rewarding, in which he stars as a care worker, and earlier this month the broadcaster released the first images from the show ahead of its expected launch later this autumn.

But controversy has swirled around the stand-up this week after footage emerged of him making a joke about the rape of Only Fans creator Rebecca Goodwin – whose case is currently going through the courts – at a filmed Have A Word roast a year ago.

Before the storm erupted, the BBC had hailed the six-part series Rewarding – in which he stars alongside Hannah McLean of Blue Lights fame – as ‘Angelone's first major acting role, [after] making a name for himself as a stand-up comedian as well as appearing on a number of panel shows’.

But yesterday a BBC Northern Ireland spokesperson said: ‘We are aware of the concerns that have been raised and are actively considering them, recognising their seriousness and the sensitivities involved.’

It came as Angelone’s podcast – Mike and Vittorio’s Guide to Parenting, which he hosts with fellow comic Mike Rice – failed to release a Thursday episode for the first time in about three years.

Angelone has issued an apology for making ‘a joke that I shouldn’t have made’, saying: ‘I let my need for validation supersede my own standards and morals. It’s completely pathetic and I’m ashamed to realise that about myself.

‘I am not apologising in the hope that this all blows over. I’m apologising because that’s what you should do when you realise you’ve done something wrong… I will do better in future.’

However, Goodwin said his apology was ‘acknowledged but not accepted’.

Rachel Morrogh, chief executive of Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, has said: ‘For survivors, hearing rape treated as a punchline can be deeply hurtful, and it reinforces the attitudes that discourage people from coming forward… To treat sexual violence as a joke betrays a deep lack of understanding of what survivors have lived through.’