Playing Shop

A new live audience studio sitcom written by and starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb. They play Eric and Jamie, two of the most dynamic, practical and driven men ever to try and run a business out of a garden shed. Convinced that everyone else involved in commerce are idiots, they think that this insight alone will make them millionaires.

To such men, redundancy is just an opportunity - an opportunity to blow all their money on two massive trips to Rymans. Armed with new computers, state-of-the-art stationery and a blogger's contempt for the rest of mankind, all they have to do is sit back and wait for greatness to be thrust upon them. Oh and somehow earn enough money to keep themselves in lager and snacks.

They're up a creek basically, although they have got a paddle - they're just not sure whether they can be bothered to use it. Welcome to the epic struggle of two men attempting to make a fast buck without getting up before eleven or ever missing Bargain Hunt.

June 2009 Update: The BBC liked the pilot and have commissioned a series. However, Mitchell and Webb have had second thoughts and, in what must be a comedy first, have canned their own sitcom! "I think we made the characters too scuzzy and low-rent," says Mitchell. "It was our natural inclination to write these absolute losers." "It was too close to Peep Show," says Webb.