Icklewick FM returning to Radio 4, with series in active talks for TV
- The Delightful Sausage's improvised sitcom, Icklewick FM, is returning to Radio 4 for a second series, star and co-creator Amy Gledhill has revealed
- She and her double act partner Chris Cantrill are also in active discussions with the BBC about adapting the spoof radio station comedy for television
- The pair are also working on a "very silly", Shooting Stars-style game show, Gledhill told the Always Be Comedy podcast
The Delightful Sausage's Radio 4 sitcom Icklewick FM is returning for a second series next year, with active discussions about a television version, Amy Gledhill has revealed.
Gledhill has also disclosed that she and her Sausage double act partner, Chris Cantrill, are working on a "very silly", Shooting Stars-style game show for broadcast.
She told fellow comic James Gill on the Always Be Comedy podcast that they had "really enjoyed" making the heavily improvised Icklewick FM, about a spoof radio station in a small, post-industrial Northern town.
Running for six episodes from February, it starred the pair alongside Colin Hoult, Mark Silcox, Lucy Beaumont, Jen Brister, Phil Ellis, Ed Night, Steen Raskopoulos and Janice Connolly as Barbara Nice.
"It's been recommissioned for a second series, which is fantastic" Gledhill remarked of the show, which is produced by Benjamin Sutton and Laura Shaw for Daddy's Superyacht. A co-commission from BBC radio and television bosses, the ambition has always been for Icklewick FM to transfer to television.
She added: "The BBC have kind of been saying 'so what would this look like if it moved to TV?' And we're sort of saying 'it'll look like whatever you want it to look like. What do you want? We'll do it!'"
"So at the moment that's in with the BBC. Nothing firm but people are thinking about it and that is fantastic."
A Radio 4 spokesperson confirmed to British Comedy Guide that six more episodes of Icklewick FM have been ordered for 2025.
Nominated for Best Newcomer in the 2022 Edinburgh Comedy Awards for her debut show, The Girl Before The Girl You Marry, Gledhill was also nominated for best show with Cantrill for their Delightful Sausage show the same year, their second shortlist for the Fringe prize.
She told Gill that The Sausage are also developing a game show.
"It's very much in the vein of Vic & Bob, even though we know it would be very difficult for us to get that commissioned. You've just got to write what you like and hope for the best.
"It'd be too cynical for us to write, or attempt to write, a very polished format. So it's very silly, it's very Sausage. Our agents are having a look and then they're going to decide who to waft it in front of, 'do you wanna have a look at this? Come on, have a look at this!'
Last month, Channel 4 released the Blap, Toads, written by and starring Gledhill and based on The Girl Before, a proof-of-concept pilot for another potential sitcom.
"I'd love it, it'd be my dream for it to go further" she told Gill. "But if it does go no further, just making it was incredible. What an experience!"