Both seasons now shooting back-to-back

The BBC has ordered a second series of Stephen Merchant comedy-drama The Offenders before the first has even aired.

This six-part series – whose stars include Christopher Walken, Darren Boyd and Poldark’s Eleanor Tomlinson – revolves around seven strangers forced together to complete their community service sentences.

Shooting on the first series, set in Merchant’s native Bristol, was halted after just 12 days because of coronavirus – but now both seasons are being shot back-to-back now production has resumed.

Kenton Allen, boss of production company Big Talk, revealed the news in an interview with Deadline.

He told the website that the BBC asked if Merchant would write the second series during the hiatus ‘We said, "We’ll write Season 2 if you commission Season 2",’ Allen recalls. 

They said yes, and Allen explained:  ‘We were able to rewrite Season 1 to reflect what we know is going to happen to the characters in Season 2. We were able to deepen it and layer it.’

Allen also revealed that Channel 4 has commissioned a 90-minute documentary about Friday Night Dinner to mark its 10th anniversary next month.

And he said there were plans to pilot a US version of  Timewasters, Daniel Lawrence Taylor’s comedy about a  time-traveling jazz band, in the spring.

Published: 13 Jan 2021