Sci-fi sitcom for Gents star

The League of Gentlemen’s Mark Gatiss is to star in a futuristic new Radio 4 comedy in the new year

Gatiss created Nebulous with Graham Duff, writer of BBC Two's Dr Terrible’s House Of Horrible, who penned the full series.

Professor Nebulous heads an ecological troubleshooting organization called K.E.N.T., which is trying to return a post-apocalyptic England to normality.

The show is set in 2099, when most livestock has been eliminated, the year has been restructured to include new months such as Octember and Janril, and there’s even a new season: Hamble, which falls between Spring and Summer and is generally drizzly.

K.E.N.T. (which stands for something different each week),  tackles such problems as killer cacti or a new colour which sends people insane, even though it is so woefully short of cash, it has to subsidise its work by running a launderette. There is also a generously-funded rival ecological trouble-shooting organisation, L.O.U.G.H.B.O.R.O.U.G.H.

The show, the first radio production from Steve Coogan and Henry Normal's production house Baby Cow, starts on Radio 4 at 11pm on January 6.

Gatiss has just finished filming the League Of Gentlemen movie, called Royston Vasey, and also wrote one of the stories in the forthcoming Dr Who revival.

Published: 29 Nov 2004