BBC to pilot three comedies at Salford Sitcom Showcase 2014
The BBC is gearing up to trial a batch of sitcom pilots at The Salford Comedy Festival 2014.
The three day festival, which is supported by BBC Comedy Commissioning, is held at the BBC's northern office complex and studios - MediaCityUK.
This year's event features three sitcom pilots being performed live, the screening of another TV sitcom pilot, a comedy radio recording, plus comedy writing masterclasses.
Stars appearing in the shows include Justin Moorhouse, Maureen Lipman, Simon Day, Mark Benton, Elizabeth Berrington and Denise Welch.
This will be the third time The Salford Sitcom Showcase event has run, with the BBC hoping that one or more of the scripts trialled will go on to become one of the corporation's next TV hits. BBC One's studio audience sitcom Citizen Khan and BBC Two's single camera sitcom Hebburn, both of which have so far run for two series, were developed via the Salford Sitcom Showcase.
This year's festival runs from the 17th to 19th March.
BBC Comedy Commissioner Shane Allen says: "The North is synonymous with great British comedy and the BBC has always found a home for the best of them. The Salford Sitcom Showcase captures this on-going commitment to delivering the next best in comedy writing and performing. There's nothing like the instant feedback of a live audience to tell you what does and doesn't work in a new comedy."
Peter Salmon from BBC North, adds: "Comedy is crucial to the success of the BBC in the North. From The Royle Family to Last Of The Summer Wine, Victoria Wood to Peter Kay, some of our biggest hits and best-loved faces have come from these parts and the Salford Comedy Festival is about finding the next generation of talent and ideas to delight our audiences. This region isn't just famous for sport and music - we make great comedy too - so it's great to welcome top industry practitioners to Greater Manchester from all over the world this week.'"
Helen Spencer, the BBC's Salford Comedy Festival Director, concludes: "The Salford Sitcom Showcase has become an important part of the BBC Comedy landscape, earning its industry stripes following commissions for both Citizen Khan and Hebburn. It allows the audience to have a sneak preview of some of the latest comedy pilots in development for BBC television including exclusive screenings and theatrical performances by some of the UK's favourite comedy actors."
An episode of Radio 4 show Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang Ups will be recorded on the 18th March, and the following sitcoms will be trialled across the three evenings:
Welcome Home, written by and starring stand-up comedian Justin Moorhouse, is described as "a big warm-hearted sitcom about what happens when you get divorced but can't afford to move out". Add in an interfering Gran, an attractive neighbour and a distracting sidekick and life becomes very complicated.
The cast also includes Maureen Lipman, Lloyd Langford, Jodie Prenger, Amara Karan and Daniel Ings.
A sitcom by James Hendrie and Ian Brown about the only man who "stands between the residents of Belmont Road and lawlessness, disorder and their sanity".
Simon Day stars as ex-policeman Ed Halliwell, a man with time on his hands. He's been on indefinite sick leave since being injured in the line of duty (he pulled a muscle lifting a tray of pasties at a cycling proficiency event). A man in search of a role, he spends more time meddling with his neighbours' lives than he devotes to his wife and kids.
Despite the chaos he unleashes, Ed manages to bring together three disparate households, who have nothing in common but their postcode, in unity... unity against Ed Halliwell.
A sitcom created by Claire Downes, Ian Jarvis and Stuart Lane, the team behind ITV2 sitcom The Job Lot.
Tools is described as a warm, quirky, single-camera ensemble sitcom set in a Homezone DIY superstore (Junction 9, off the M6, next to the big ASDA).
It's a place where the dream to create the perfect home meets the reality of a windswept retail park just outside Wolverhampton. It's a world immediately recognisable to anyone who's traipsed around the canyon aisles of a DIY store, looking for the one size of screw that's never in stock.
We join mid-life crisis manager Greg and his enthusiastic, well meaning but often frustrating team as they try to shepherd the customers through a bank holiday weekend, and some of the most important decisions of their adult lives - whether to paint the walls ivory, champagne or off-white.
The cast includes Mark Benton, Elizabeth Berrington, Jessie Cave, Jody Latham, Asim Chaudhry, Tony Law, Fergus Craig, Daisy Beaumont, Alan Williams and James Lance.
Boy Meets Girl (Screenings)
Sitcom written by Elliott Kerrigan, one of the winners of the Trans Comedy Award: a BBC Writersroom talent search run in partnership with Trans Comedy to encourage writers to promote a positive portrayal of Transgender people in mainstream comedy.
Leo's had a bad day. He's been fired (again), is being given a hard time by his Mum and, to cap it all, his blind date fails to show up. But then he bumps into Judy and finds himself deeply attracted to this surprising and beguiling woman. They bond over drinks and, unfazed by the fact that there's a bit of an age gap between them, arrange to meet the following evening. Leo's mother is unhappy that he's having dinner with an older woman. But Leo doesn't care what she thinks; he knows that he's just met someone very special.
The cast includes Rebecca Root (pictured), Harry Hepple, Denise Welch, Janine Duvitski, Jonny Dixon, Nigel Betts, Simon Ludders, Hannah Waddingham, Nicholas Burns, Belinda Stewart-Wilson, Rhys Thomas, Amit Shah, Gem Carmella and Milanka Brooks.
This page was updated on the 14th March to add in the cast for each episode, details on the screening of 'Boy Meets Girl', and the new quotes from the BBC Executives.