Comedy

“We need more voices on telly – there’s not enough working-class people in telly and not enough diversity,” said UKTV head of comedy entertainment Iain Coyle.

“All the different voices that make up this country need to be working in television – not just the poshos who’ve been to Cambridge and Oxford,” said Sohail Shah, the MD of new indie King of Sunshine Productions.

He added: “Without new talent you don’t get any kind of progression in TV.”

The three-part series, entitled Comedy Against Living Miserably, aims to raise awareness and money for the mental health charity with comics waiving their fee as a donation to the charity.

The series builds upon Dave’s relationship with CALM since last year’s “Be the Mate You’d Want” campaign, where they encouraged viewers to spend the ad time calling or texting a friend.

Following his speech, in a Q&A with diversity campaigner and advertising executive Karen Blackett, Lenny Henry described the pace of change in the hiring of women and disabled and ethnic-minority people behind the screen as “glacial”. His point was reinforced by the findings of Ofcom’s latest diversity report, discussed in earlier Cambridge sessions.

Miranda followed the eponymous protagonist’s awkward encounters in the joke shop she ran with her best friend Stevie (Sarah Hadland), as she vied for the attention of heart-throb Gary (Tom Ellis).

Hosted by Miranda Hart at the London Palladium, Miranda: My Such Fun Celebration will see the cast reunite to look back over the sitcom’s history of friendship, family, romance and laughter. 

Viewers can expect behind the scenes footage and moving reflections alongside the essential silliness and gags that made Miranda so popular.

Man With A Plan

Friends star Matt LeBlanc plays Adam, a father who is new to being a stay-at-home parent and quickly learns that parenting is far more demanding than he expected.

When his wife Andi (Liza Snyder) returns to work, Adam tries to keep the house in order but when his three children prove to be anything but little angels, he finds out he has his work cut out.

Jeetooa said: “If you messed up your line, the boat team had to get on and very slowly reverse the boat back to the starting spot. That’s the reverse of shame.”

The 69ft narrow boat, called Dorothy, is the fifth star of Zomboat!. It plays a vital role as the very slow means of escape for sisters Kat and Jo and friends Sunny (Jeetooa) and Amar when a zombie apocalypse breaks out in Birmingham.

Semi-Detached follows Stuart (Mack), a failing wedding DJ whose life in suburbia spirals downhill.

Stuart’s hopes of a quiet life are crushed by his chaotic family including his much younger partner April (Ellie White) and their new-born baby, his law-breaking brother Charlie (Neil Fitzmaurice) and his drug-taking father, Willie (Clive Russell).

The three-part series follows Emily Verma (Dew), a 27-year-old living the high life in London after flying the nest from her seaside hometown, Sandylands.

When Emily hears her father Les Vegas (Bhaskar) is lost at sea, she returns to her childhood home and reconnects with her old best friend Tina (Harriet Webb) and quickly befriends her oddball next door neighbours Derek Swallows (Walliams) and his wife Jeannie (Sophie Thompson).

Lady Parts follows geeky PHD student Amina Hussein as she is recruited to join a Muslim female punk band as the unlikely lead guitarist.

Front-woman of the band, Lady Parts, Saira spots something in Hussein that the other members of the band miss and, out of desperation to keep the student in the band, she uses Hussain’s search for a husband as leverage.

Offering to hook the student up on a series of dates, Hussein joins the band and quickly gets swept up in joyful, anarchic punk lifestyle.