Studio show from Edinburgh Fringe trio

Sketch trio Pappy’s are to make their own six-part sitcom for BBC Three.

The studio-based sitcom – which has the working title The Secret Dude Society – will be filmed in front of a live studio audience in Glasgow early next year.

The news comes less than a month after the trio - Tom Parry, Matthew Crosby and Ben Clark – were nominated for the Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award for their supposed Last Show Ever.

It is not their first venture into TV, but it is their first series. In 2009, they made a pilot of a spoof game show, called Mr And Mrs Hotty Hott Hot Show, which went out as part of E4’s Comedy Lab strand, and the previous year, while a foursome with Brendan Dodds and still called Pappy’s Fun Club, they made a self-titled sketch show pilot for Channel 4.

The Secret Dude Society will be made by The Comedy Unit, the Scottish production company behind Rab C Nesbitt and Limmy’s Show.

Creative director Gavin Smith said: ‘We’ve long been fans of Pappy’s amazing live shows, so it’s been great to work with them on finding a sitcom world that has room for all the mayhem they convey to a live audience.’

This will be BBC Three’s first studio sitcom since 2009’s ill-fated We Are Klang. Channel controller Zai Bennett said ‘The Secret Dude Society with Pappy’s has fantastic energy and a super high gag rate. It’s the first a studio sitcom we’ve green lit in years on BBC Three and should complement our on-going comedy renaissance.’

Published: 20 Sep 2012