Sky1 commissions supermarket sitcom Trollied
Sky1 has commissioned an eight-part sitcom set in a north-west budget supermarket, starring actress and voice of Tesco, Jane Horrocks.
Trollied will star Horrocks, Mark Addy (also a Tesco advert veteran), and Jason Watkins as the staff of the Valco supermarket. The new comedy will focus on the staff and the customers who visit their low-priced store.
The series, due to start filming in July, has been written by Julie Rutterford (Teachers, Shameless), and will be directed by Paul Walker, and executive produced by Ash Atalla (The IT Crowd, The Office) for Roughcut TV.
It follows hot on the heels of Shelfstackers, a BBC sitcom broadcast in 2010 under the network's teenage strand, BBC Switch. Other comedies set in supermarkets include Tripper's Day, the last series made by Leonard Rossiter, and the follow-up sitcom after Rossiter's death, Slinger's Day, starring Bruce Forsyth.
Trollied is one of a string of new comedies currently being made by Sky1. The channel also broadcasts the sports-based panel game A League Of Their Own, hosted by James Corden, and is currently producing Unseen Academicals, the fourth of its adaptations of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. Other comedies the commercial network is currently making include comedy dramas Mount Pleasant and Stella, as well as surreal sitcom This Is Jinsy for Sky Atlantic, which originally was piloted on BBC Three.