Burnistoun, Limmy and Gary Tank Commander get 3rd series
BBC Scotland has renewed its three hit TV comedy shows. Burnistoun, Gary: Tank Commander and Limmy's Show! will each return for a third series in 2012, and are all productions of The Comedy Unit.
Gary: Tank Commander is a sitcom about an army solider more interested in getting a sun tan and talking about philosophy than fighting. The show is written by and stars actor and stand-up comic Greg McHugh, who has recently been praised by the press for showing good acting range as weirdo flatmate Howard in hit Channel 4 comedy drama Fresh Meat - a character very different from the outgoing and popular Gary McLintoch who is at the centre of Tank Commander.
Robert Florence and Iain Connell play most of the characters in Burnistoun, a sketch show in which all the scenes are based around the residents of a fictional town. Burnistoun has its own newspaper, furniture store, gym, pub and all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant, and radio station. Regular characters include a disgruntled serial killer, a wannabe girl-band singer and two snippy siblings who share high drama inside their ice cream van.
Limmy's Show! is a sketch show created by cult internet star Brian Limond. The show mixes characters, animation and monologues which are written by, directed by and star Limond. The recommission comes despite the fact that last month there were calls for the BBC to disassociate itself with Limmond after he posted a series of aggressive messages on micro-blogging website Twitter, including the claim he'd like to kill Prince William and the suggestion people should celebrate when Margaret Thatcher dies. The comedian has since deleted the tweets and apologised.
The three comedies, all produced by independent production company The Comedy Unit, have proved to be big hits within Scotland. Whilst the corporation's Scottish channels are available throughout the UK on television platforms such as Sky and Virgin Media, the BBC has come under criticism from fans, the press, and many of the shows' stars, for not regularly airing the series south of the border.
To date, Limmy's Show! has only otherwise been available to view in England and Wales via iPlayer. Gary: Tank Commaner has been repeated on BBC Three, and the second series of Burnistoun was recently re-run on BBC Two, but in both cases the shows were given late-night slots and the BBC was accused of doing little to draw viewers' attention to the shows, resulting in low viewing figures.
The Daily Record newspaper quotes an un-named source as saying: "It's great news that all three of them have been recommissioned as they've all been really popular with viewers. But there's still a great deal of frustration over the graveyard slots London schedule bosses gave Burnistoun and Gary, and that Limmy was ignored completely."
Series 3 of Burnistoun, Gary: Tank Commander and Limmy's Show! will all be shown in 2012 in Scotland. There is no word yet on whether they will be given a nationwide broadcast.