Repeat run for the original radio version of Sean Lock's sitcom

The original radio version of Sean’s Lock’s acclaimed comedy 15 Storeys High is to get a repeat airing, more than 20 years after it was first broadcast.

Archive channel Radio 4 Extra will rerun the downbeat sitcom starting this weekend. The five-part series originally aired in November and December 1999, and was the follow-up to the shorter programme, Sean Lock's 15 Minutes of Misery, which launched the previous year.

The comedian, who died in 2021 at the age of 58, played Vince Clark, a depressed, sardonic recluse living in a London tower block and working at the local swimming baths.

Lock co-wrote the show with  Martin Trenaman  and it co-starred  Felix Dexter, Jenny Eclair, Tim Mitchell, Tracy-Ann Oberman and Peter Serafinowicz. A second radio series followed the following year before it transferred to TV – on the BBC Three forerunner BBC Choice – in 2002.

The BBC put the TV version of 15 Storeys High on iPlayer soon after his death, but baffled fans by running a version with a laugh track. it is no longer available to stream.

Radio 4 Extra will be airing the radio original from 10pm this Sunday.

Published: 16 Jan 2023