Matt Berry to star in period cop comedy Year Of The Rabbit

Matt Berry is making a Victorian crime comedy entitled Year Of The Rabbit for Channel 4.

The six-part series – described as ‘irreverently and profanely inspired by the unhinged chaos’ of the era – follows a pilot first revealed by Chortle last year.

The Toast Of London star plays Detective Inspector Rabbit, a hardened booze-hound who’s seen it all, opposite Freddie Fox, who plays his new, hapless, by-the-books partner, and Chewing Gum’s Susan Wokoma as the 'lewd but insightful’ daughter of the chief of police who becomes the country’s first female officer. 

Together, the trio must fight crime while rubbing shoulders with street gangs, crooked politicians, Bulgarian princes, spiritualists, music hall stars and the Elephant Man.

Six half-hour episodes will be directed by Catastrophe’s Ben Taylor and written by former Veep writers Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil, with additional material from Berry. 

Berry said: ‘I’m looking forward to stepping back in time to fight crime in the same significant year which brought us Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, The Elephant Man and of course Jack The Ripper.’

Fiona McDermott,  head of comedy at Channel 4, added: ‘Imagine The Sweeney in Victorian England and you’re getting close to the heady misguided machismo that runs rife in this series.  It’s an amazing vehicle for Matt’s talents and together with Susan and Freddie and the wealth of talent off-camera, we are thrilled to have it on the channel.’

Six half-hour episodes are being made by Objective Fiction with US broadcaster IFC.

The network’s Christine Lubrano said: ‘Like everyone else in comedy, we have been trying to develop a Victorian era procedural cop show for years so between that and stalking Matt Berry since he was a guest star on Portlandia, we could not be more thrilled to partner with Channel 4 on this brilliantly funny period piece.’

Published: 7 Jun 2018