About a couple who have split up

Lee Mack has created one of the UK's most successful family sitcoms – but now he's making a BBC pilot about a relationship breakdown.

Semi-Detached is about a couple who have split up but live opposite each other, and is currently being filmed in Sandhurst in Surrey, close to where the Not Going Out star lives.

The non-transmission pilot is being lined up for BBC Two and is directed by The Inbetweeners's Ben Palmer for Happy Tramp, which previously made the sitcom Sun Trap and sketch show Morgana Robinson's The Agency for the BBC.

Palmer set up the production company in 2013 with Mack's regular collaborator and sometime writing partner Neil Webster.

Further cast details have yet to be revealed but it is thought that Semi-Detached is unrelated to Semi Detached, a 2014 ITV sitcom pilot which starred Katherine Parkinson, Stephen Tompkinson and Ralf Little.

Mack's parents split when he was 12 and he has speculated that: 'I don’t know the statistics, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that a disproportionate number of comics come from broken homes'.

The ninth series of Not Going Out aired this month, with another to follow next year. Mack has also been a team captain on the panel show Would I Lie To You? since it first aired in 2007, with a live tour likely to be announced shortly after run-through dates in Cheltenham last month.

Meanwhile, the comic is set to further reinforce his relationship with the BBC by hosting a gameshow.

A pilot of First & Last was recorded at Pinewood Studios earlier this month, with production company Zeppotron explaining that Mack would 'put members of the public through a succession of hilarious and imaginative rounds, all of which have the same simple premise - you mustn't come first and you mustn't come last. Because if you do, you're eliminated from the game.'

- by Jay Richardson

Published: 27 Apr 2018