Everyone Else Burns, which returned for a second series to Channel 4 this autumn, has been called the saviour of the sitcom thanks to its gag-heavy script and warm, likeable characters.

And the tribute is deserved, despite an offputting setting within a doomsday religious sect in Manchester, the Order of the Divine Rod. At its heart are the Lewis family: old-school patriarch David (Friday Night Dinner’s Simon Bird, sporting a ludicrous pudding bowl haircut); his trapped wife, Fiona (Kate O’Flynn, Landscapers); and far wiser children, Rachel (Amy James-Kelly, Gentleman Jack) and Aaron (Harry Connor).

Everyone Else Burns pulls off the trick of having its characters – in particular, David and his fellow religious zealots – say and do horrible things while remaining engaging.

“The heart of the show is weirdly progressive and liberal. Despite some of the humour having an edge, it feels like a family sitcom. I love that, and [love] being involved in shows that can be watched by many generations,” Bird told the RTS.

O’Flynn added: “The warmth of the show is what has been so surprising and a thrill for the people I know who’ve watched it – being pulled into an unusual world that, for many, seems alienating – and then really rooting for people.”

Series creators and writers Dillon Mapletoft and Oliver Taylor met as students and started performing comedy together, but always with an eye on writing. Taylor became a doctor but switched to television. Mapletoft had been Armando Iannucci’s assistant before the debut series of Everyone Else Burns, which is produced by Jax Media UK and Universal International Studios, aired in January 2023.

Taylor lives in Cambridge and Mapletoft in London, so the two writers outline the episodes, divvy up scenes and write together on Zoom. “Ollie needs less reassurance than I do – he writes a joke and we move on; whereas I’m not sure which [joke] works so [I offer] 10 of the same kind of jokes,” revealed Mapletoft.

“I love discovering that our draft is now 45 pages long because there’s 30 versions of one joke,” added Taylor.

The second series brings a new character – love rival Maude (Sian Clifford from Fleabag), who, unlike Fiona, is at ease with the church’s strictures. “She’s the dark mirror of Fiona,” explained Mapletoft. “She weaponises her… domesticity. She’s a strangely warped trad wife who somehow knows exactly how to push David’s buttons.”

O’Flynn, who was in the same year at Rada as Clifford, added: “I knew she was going to be sensational. Casting is everything. If you get the casting wrong, that can hide how good the script is.”

As with series one, the laughs keep coming. “We aspired to have a gag rate like an American sitcom, which you don’t get so much in this country. There are a lot of dramadies, traumadies, sadcom, whatever you want to call it, but we wanted to keep the jokes flowing,” said Mapletoft.

This ambition led to last-minute tweaks of the script to cram in more jokes. Taylor recalled “one occasion when [the director] Jamie [Jay Johnson] leaned over to see me typing away on my MacBook to say, with a big smile on his face, ‘Am I going to need to cut off your hands?’”

Bird concluded: “I would say this as somebody who’s livelihood depends on the sitcom, but I do think comedy is both the hardest and the most vitally important genre to get right.

“It’s telling that the most beloved and universally praised TV series of the last few years, like Succession, have come from writers who cut their teeth in TV comedy.

“There’s a strong overlap between being funny and understanding how and why people behave the way they do. Both those things require a generosity of spirit. It’s really important that we cherish, protect and nurture the sitcom.”

The RTS online event with cast and creatives from Everyone Else Burns was held on 14 November, hosted by TV and film critic Rhianna Dhillon and produced by NBCUniversal.