Sky picks up Jack Dee panel show

Sky Atlantic has picked up the Jack Dee panel show Don’t Sit In The Front Row – in which stand-ups have to improvise routines based around audience members’ lives.

Each show will feature five comics and five members of the public, with those that generate – and inspire – the least amount of material eliminated in each round. The last contestant left in is the winner.

Sky has commissioned 16 episodes to air in the autumn.

Sky’s Antonia Hurford-Jones said: ‘The spontaneity of the audience interaction is what makes the show so exciting.

‘The comics are shooting from the hip - and you can tell they are. There's a certain joy about genuine spontaneity which can't be faked.’

The commission follows a successful non-broadcast pilot earlier this year, but the idea – Created by former Have I Got News for You producers Giles Pilbrow and Mark Barrett – has been in development since at least 2010.

Dee previously made a pilot of a topical panel show called Us Vs Them for Sky1 last year, but the idea was not picked up.

Published: 5 Apr 2012