Filming starts on Graham Linehan's next show 'within weeks'
Project to be called Tenure
Work is set to start on Graham Linehan’s next comedy project within weeks, despite his legal woes.
The Father Ted co-creator has teamed up with Deuce Bigalow star Rob Schneider and comedian and GB News host Andrew Doyle to pen a new series, which has now been revealed to be called Tenure.
The title suggests the show may be set in American academia, which has been hit by ideological clashes over ‘wokeness’ and free speech issues.
However, Linehan last year insisted: ‘It's not anti-woke comedy, which I think many people would be expecting, because I think that's going to be as dead an end as the woke movement itself is, because all of this nonsense is going to seem out of date in a couple of years.’
Last night, Schneider tweeted that filming Tenure would start this autumn, posting: ‘Upcoming Trump visit highlights UK’s growing free speech crisis… Graham Linehan’s NEW Sitcom "Tenure" will begin shooting THIS FALL from our "Friendly Fire Studio!"’
He as previously tweeted:’ I’d like to thank the flatulant and utterly incompetent British Government for the FREE PROMOTION of our studio, "Friendly Fire Studio" and our GRAHAM LINEHAN’S NEWEST TV SHOW, "TENURE!" Filming begins THIS FALL! Stay TUNED!’ as well as: ‘Graham Linehan’s BRAND NEW UNITED KINGDOM FREE SPEECH TYRANNY PROOF SIT-COM "TENURE" is being produced by my company, "Friendly Fire Studio" here in Arizona and we will begin filming as soon as he gets back to a country that values FREE SPEECH and doesn’t SILENCE DISSENT, AMERICA.’
No further details of the show have been released, and it is not clear whether any broadcaster has purchased it.
Schneider has become a fierce anti-woke, anti-vax campaigner and Maga supporter in recent years, believing that the Covid lockdown was a plan ‘to enslave humanity psychologically and physically’.
He has just launched a new whisky called Tears Of The Left with the slogan ‘100 percent woke-free’. It is listed as containing 45.47 percent alcohol, a probable reference to Donald Trump being the 45th and 47th president of the United States.
Schneider has also said his studio’s attorney would ask the Trump Administration to give asylum to Linehan as a ‘free speech refugee’.
Revealing he had moved to Arizona in December, the writer said: ‘It's very exciting to land in a new place, where I don't have any of the baggage that I have over here.'
He said he would have two years to try to get his next project off the ground, which suggests that may be how long his US visa lasts.
Linehan’s criminal case for the alleged harassment of teenage trans rights campaigner Sophia Brooks and criminal damage to her phone has been adjourned at Westminster Magistrates Court until October 29. The 57-year-old denies the charges.
And he is on police bail following his well-publicised arrest at Heathrow Airport last Monday over anti-trans tweets he posted in April. He will be interviewed by officers again some time next month.
Published: 8 Sep 2025
