Comic to star as a monk in BBC One sitcom

Seann Walsh is set to star in a BBC One sitcom – as a monk.

The stand-up is recording a pilot episode of Monks, a ‘brilliantly big’ comedy, in front of a studio audience later this month.

In it, he plays Gary Woodcroft, who joins a monastery to escape prosecution after being discovered as a benefits fraudster.

Vicar of Dibley star James Fleet plays the Abbot, and Mark Heap his deputy, while Justin Edwards – the Thick Of It Star and creator of tipsy children’s entertainer Jeremy Lions – is another monk, Bernard, who ‘likes a drink or two’.

This is not the first venture into sitcom for Walsh, who last year appeared in the eight-part series Big Bad World for Comedy Central, again alongside Fleet. However, a BBC One sitcom could provide a huge boost to his profile.

The show, written by Dan Tetsell and Danny Robbins, has been more than 14 years in the making. It originally surfaced as a one-off on Radio 2 in 2000, called Hey Hey We’re The Monks and starring Bill Bailey and Catherine Tate.

And in 2008, BBC One made a previous pilot, starring James Corden and described at the time as ‘Father Ted meets Men Behaving Badly’. Edwards is the only cast member of that unbroadcast episode to be in the latest version, to be recorded at Elstree Studios on January 31. It is not known whether the new pilot is intended for broadcast. See our free tickets page to be in the studio audience.

Published: 6 Jan 2014