Broadcaster's new comedy drive

ITV1 is making a new push towards comedy, poaching some of the BBC's top stars forwith a raft of new commissions.

The broadcaster has ordered five one-off comedies, a new series from Marion and Geoff star Rob Brydon, and announced the return of Simon Nye's sitcom Hardware (pictured).

It is hoped the shows will re-establish ITV1 as a home for comedy - a genre the channel has previously neglected.

Three of the stand-alone shows will be screened sometime next year under the banner Trapped.

Richard Wilson will star in one them, King Of Fridges, which has been written by All Quiet On The Preston Front creator Tim Firth.

Made by Steve Coogan's production house Baby Cow, the show is about has an ambitious young electrical shop manager saddled with a 65-year-old trainee over a frantic bank holiday. Firth called it "Beckett set in Curry's".

Men Behaving Badly writer Nye has penned another in the series, a contemporary retelling of the Beauty & The Beast story.

And in the third, Von Trapped, Caroline Quentin plays a woman obsessed with The Sound of Music. Gimme Gimme Gimme scribe Jonathan Harvey has written he scrip.

ITV's controller of comedy Sioned Wiliam told media industry website C21: "What appealed to us was the idea of having three very different first-class comedy writers create something with total freedom but under the unity of a common theme. It was fascinating to see which direction each would go."

The fourth one-off comedy, Angell's Hell, is about a dead man who relives his life in a similar vein to the classic movie It's A Wonderful Life. Kumars star Sanjeev Bhaskar plays the lead.

It has commissioned Director's Commentary, starring Brydon supplying bogus directorial voice-overs to classic TV shows like Upstairs Downstairs - a spoof on the extras found on DVDs.

The five shows, announced at the Montreux television festival in Switzerland, are believed to cost about £2million in total.

Hardware, starring The Office's Martin Freeman, will return next season, despite garnering only lukewarm reviews for its first run.

Published: 17 May 2003