Sky to air a series of slapstick comedies

Sky is launching a series of knockabout physical comedies featuring Vic Reeves, Kim Cattrall, Frank Skinner, Kevin Eldon and Johnny Vegas.

The four 30-minute films, which will air on Sky Arts this autumn, also feature Edinburgh Comedy Award winners John Kearns and Dr Brown, new Barry Award winner Sam Simmons, Seann Walsh and plenty of other familiar faces.

Brilliantman! is a dialogue-free comedy written by and starring Eldon as humble council worker Ian Hedges, a wannabe superhero, with Vegas playing his sour-tempered landlady, Mrs Wardle.

Having assumed his secret identity as Brilliantman, Hedges incompetently tackles a mugger, burglar and potentially murderous parrot.

The film is described as focusing heavily on ‘the physical aspect’ of Eldon’s comedy by production company What Larks!

In Ruby Robinson, a morality tale written by comic Mike Wozniak, Cattrall plays Ruby, who lives in a huge, isolated and dilapidated house with a troupe of unusual acrobat helpers who perform seemingly impossible physical feats.

Made by Miranda Hart and David Walliams’s company King Bert Productions, it co-stars Wozniak as Ruby’s scheming nephew and Cariad Lloyd as his wife.

Three Kinds Of Stupid is a Three Stooges-style comedy starring Walsh, Marek Larwood and Jocelyn Jee Esien as bungling community police officers who befriend a blind Man played by Jim Moir (Reeves) but inadvertently kill his guide dog. It has been written by Chris Reddy and made by Little Comet, the writer and production company behind BBC Three’s Pramface.

Rotters is described as a slapstick cross between Dumb And Dumber and Oceans 11, as it follows a gang of idiots who attempt to rob an auction house owned by an antique dealer played by Frank Skinner.

The film from Eleven Film features Phil Burgers (Dr Brown), Kearns, Simmons, Lolly Adefope and Daniel Simonsen as the motley crew battling against a dazzling array of security devices and Pat Cahill’s meddlesome traffic warden.

Philip Edgar-Jones, Sky Arts director, said: ‘There’s no finer sight in life than someone bumping into something. This was the starting point for our brand new physical comedy season on Sky Arts.

‘Luckily the brilliant comic talent who signed up to make four top notch, one-offs all had a rather more sophisticated view of what a silent comedy should be.

‘We are thrilled that Frank Skinner, Vic Reeves, Johnny Vegas, Kevin Eldon, Seann Walsh and Kim Cattrall – among a host of others – will be entertaining our equally sophisticated customers with their versions of knockabout fun.’

The new series follows the BBC’s recent revival of physical comedy with Matt Lucas’ largely dialogue-free series Pompidou.

Brilliantman!, Three Kinds Of Stupid and Rotters are set to premiere at the Cat Laughs Comedy Festival in Kilkenny next month, where Eldon, Vegas, Kearns and Cahill will take part in a question and answer session.

-by Jay Richardson

Published: 21 Apr 2015