Channel 4 picks up new sitcom

Inbetweeners comic Simon Bird and Green Wing’s Tamsin Greig are to star in a new family sitcom for Channel 4.

Bird will appear opposite fellow Chortle Student Comedy Award finalist Tom Rosenthal in Friday Night Dinner, which has been created by Peep Show producer Robert Popper.

A pilot was shot for E4, but not yet aired, but the single-camera comedy has now been picked up for a full Channel 4 series.

Bird and Rosenthal play twentysomething brothers who go round to their parents’ house for a traditional Jewish Friday night dinner.

Greig plays the mother and Paul Ritter, who played Martin in the recent Pulling special, is the dad. Grieg’s fellow Green Wing alumnus Mark Heap plays. the neighbour.

Popper, co-creator of BBC Two's Look Around You and author of the best-selling The Timewaster Letters, said: ‘I want the show to capture the way we all revert to being kids again when we go round to our parents’. But it's also pretty autobiographical, ie it features a dad who drinks ketchup straight from the bottle, just like mine.

Channel 4 comedy and entertainment commissioning editor Darren Smith said: ‘Friday Night Dinner is a brilliantly funny, fresh and well observed take on family life with something of a dream cast – an irresistible commission from Robert’s pilot.’

Steve Bendelack, who worked on The Royle Family and The League of Gentlemen will be directing the show, made by Big Talk Productions and Popper Pictures.

Published: 12 Feb 2010