Star-studded cast for Channel 4 series

Simon Bird is to star in a new Channel 4 comedy set in a hyper-religious doomsday sect.

Everyone Else Burns boasts an ensemble cast that also  includes fellow comedy stars Lolly Adefope, Al Roberts, Lloyd Griffith, Kadiff Kirwan, Morgana Robinson, Liam Williams, Kath Hughes, and Seb Cardinal.

The series is billed as a ‘ coming-of-age comedy about a Mancunian family and the puritanical Christian sect they are devoted to. Will patriarchal David Lewis ever ascend the church ranks and become an Elder? Will dutiful wife Fiona deviate from her own dogmatic moral compass? Will their naïve 17-year-old daughter Rachal be allowed to go to university, and will 12-year-old son Aaron ever fend off his secular bullies? All could lead to damnation.'

Friday Night Dinner star Bird plays David withe Kate O’Flynn from Death In Paradise, as Fiona.

Dillon Mapletoft and Oliver Taylor wrote the script and the series will be directed by Ghosts’  Nick Collett. Both writers were former members of the Cambridge Footlights president, while Mapletoft works as an assistant to Armando Iannucci. They also wrote the comedy-drama play Fix My Brain, about depression and the hardships of working in the NHS, which was nominated for best newcomer at the Brighton Fringe and is now under option for a television adaptation

Described as an ‘irreverent, hilarious and heart-warming series’, Everyone Else Burns was commissioned from Jax Media – producers of the Netflix hit Russian Doll – by Channel 4’s head of comedy Fiona McDermott and commissioning executive Laura Riseam.

Riseam said: ‘Jax Media have made some of the most iconic comedy of recent years and we are so delighted to be working with them, Oli and Dillon on a project they are so passionate about.  We can’t wait for audiences to enter the pressure cooker of life with the Lewis family as they righteously try and defend the ideology and logic of a life of purity with the vices of the modern world encroaching fast. 

‘It’s a glorious comedy trap; contemporary, relevant and very funny.’

Published: 3 May 2022