Others feature the likes of Elaine C. Smith and  Ladhood’s Karan Gill

The BBC are to release a new series of comedy pilots featuring the likes of Fatiha El-Ghorri, Elaine C. Smith and  Ladhood’s Karan Gill.

El-Ghorri stats in the first – Donkey – which airs on BBC Three at 9.50pm tomorrow, overlapping with her first episode of Taskmaster, which starts on Channel 4 at 9pm.

In it the 12-minute pilot, the comic plays Kenza, seen as a ‘donkey’ by her family. So when her uncle fires her from the family cafe, she makes a plan to show them what she's truly capable of.

El-Ghorri co-wrote the pilot with James Purdy, and it co-stars Home and Man Like Mobeen’s Youssef Kerkour.

The comic is having a high-profile few days, as she also one of the team captains on the new gameshow Silence Is Golden, which starts on U&Dave at 9pm on Monday. (Read an interview with creator Richard Bacon here)

The other shorts in the new BBC series are:

Spinster, airing on May 8 and starring Amy Molloy as single, penniless poet Ruby, who has recently moved back home to live with her mum(Mary Moulds). When their strict Presbyterian neighbours descend on the home for the engagement party of her spoiled sister Eliza, Ruby's only job is to not shame the family... The script waswritten by Northern Irish-South African filmmaker Eileen Tracey.

Danielle Does Life: A sketch show about ‘the funny unspoken rules of modern interaction, starring Smotherered Danielle Vitalis. She wrote the show with a time that included  Nathan Bryon, Tasha Dhanraj, Emily Lloyd-Saini, John Macmillan, Gbemi Oladipo and Laurence Spellman. It is directed by former comic Rachel Stubbings.

Zoners: Starring Ladhood’s Karan Gill and Ikky Kabir as  brothers, flatmates and polar opposites who find themselves on an adventure when they accidentally steal a package from their maniac neighbour, Ivan. It is writtenby stand-up Rajiv Karia and   Ishan Ganjoor, adapted from their 2020 webseries of the same name. The cast also includes comedians Ed Kear 

Govan Fair Queen, in which Two Doors Down star Elaine C. Smith plays sharp-tongued Linda, who ropes her granddaughter Abigail (Harper Hamilton) into the Govan Fair Queen pageant in a bid to win a trip to Florida. It written and directed by online-turned-live performer Paul Black.

Rocket Fuel. Newcomers Elif Riley and Logan Ludbrook, play bored estate kids Lenny and Mullet who find an abandoned car and use their imaginations to build a ride to the moon. It is written and directed by Jordon Scott Kennedy.

Details of the later episodes were first revealed by the British Comedy Guide.

• An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Jordan Brookes being in one of the shorts

Published: 30 Apr 2025