Comedy Showcase line-up announced

Channel 4 has unveiled its next round of Comedy Showcases with showcase for Angelos Epithemiou, Vic Reeves, Milton Jones and Armstrong and Miller, among others.

Some of the seven pilots in the strand – which frequently lead to full series – have previously been revealed, but this is the first time the full line-up has been confirmed.

Armstrong and Miller star in Felix And Murdo, a sitcom written by Men Behaving Badly creator Simon Nye and set around the 1908 London Olympics. They play a couple of athletes who don’t let their training get in the way of their bingeing on alcohol, drugs, and sex.

Meanwhile, Reeves stars alongside Rhys Darby, Kerry Howard, Katy Wix and Clive Rowe in Fun Police, a ‘larger than life’ studio sitcom set in the world of incompetent health and safety officers. Channel 4 says the comedy - created by Russell Brand's former writing Matt Morgan – ‘aims to emulate the style of big knockabout US comedies such as Anchorman’.

The Shooting Stars regular created by Dan Renton Skinner is given his own comedy entertainment show show, The Angelos Neil Epithemiou Show. It will involve the studio audience, celebrities and new comedy characters – and Bob Mortimer is one of the executive producers

Milton Jones stars in the pilot House Of Rooms, a show he has written written with fellow stand-up Dan Evans. The Mock The Week regular plays a landlord trying to manage a house of uncontrollable tenants.

Inbetweeners stars Simon Bird and Joe Thomas reunite with their former sketch show collaborator Jonny Sweet for Chickens, about three young men in a sleepy village who have avoided combat during the First World War through medical problems, conscientious objection or simple cowardice.

Coma Girl is about three old schoolfriends who have a monthly get-together around the intensive care bed of a fourth – who is in a coma. Lead Balloon’s Anna Crilly plays the unconscious Lucy, while her double-act partner Katy Wix (making this her third Comedy Showcase as she's also in Felix And Murdo), is one of the visitors, Sarah, a reluctant mother of three. The other friends are Pip, a ‘pseudo bohemian’ played by The IT Crowd’s Katherine Parkinson and failing TV presenter Siobhan, played by Him & Her’s Sarah Solemani

Finally, The Function Room - which is still a working title – is a studio sitcom written by Dan Maier, one of Harry Hill’s writers on TV Burp and set in a pub function room. The pilot is based around a community Meet The Police event held there.

The Comedy Showcases strand, which has been running since 2007, has previously launched such series as PhoneShop, Campus and The Kevin Bishop Show.

Published: 14 Jul 2011