This year will see a change to the judging panel with pro dancer Anton Du Beke replacing Bruno Tonioli as a judge, and a new group of pro dancers will take to the stage.
The first celebrity contestants have been announced, which will include Strictly’s first ever all male couple.
To create a successful sitcom is one of the most difficult tasks in the TV firmament. To create a successful British sitcom that survives for 12 years, nine series and 54 episodes is staggering.
Unlike in the US, producers rarely have writers rooms on this side of the Atlantic, where teams of wordsmiths endlessly hone scripts to keep a show up and running. Remember, Fawlty Towers closed its doors after just two six-part series.
Viewers have been kept waiting for a second outing of Back, David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s bitingly funny Channel 4 sitcom, which returned to our screens at the end of last month.
The delay had nothing to do with a lack of commissioning courage – how could anyone find fault with the filth and comic fury of Simon Blackwell’s scripts, the ever-watchable Mitchell and Webb or the fantastic ensemble cast?
David Mitchell, Robert Webb and writer Simon Blackwell discuss the making of the upcoming series of Back and what to expect for series two.
Mitchell is Stephen, a man who has failed as a husband, a lawyer and at running his late father’s pub. Worse, he’s been usurped in his family’s affections by the charismatic Andrew (Webb), supposedly a former foster child of Stephen’s parents.
“I like to pay the comic mattress on which people jump up and down – there’s a lot of comedy and fun acting to be had from the character that things are happening to,” said Mitchell.
He described Stephen as “disappointed and self-loathing and endlessly self-doubting, also intelligent and little bit angry.”
At the broadcaster’s Upfront 2017 event, they announced a brand new comedy series from Peep Show writer Simon Blackwell, to star David Mitchell and Robert Webb; named the first celebrities to take part in this year’s The Jump; and promised a massive content investment increase for 2017 on All 4
The stars of Peep Show Mitchell and Webb are returning to Channel 4 in Back.
Back comes from Emmy-award winning writer Simon Blackwell, who worked with Mitchell and Webb on Channel 4’s popular comedy Peep Show.
When Stephen’s (Mitchell) father Laurie dies, it is finally Stephen’s time to take over the family business, a local pub. His mother and sister (Julie Deakin and Louise Brealey) are too busy aligning positive energies to take an interest in the family business.
Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney's acerbic comedy about a couple who get pregnant after a one-week-stand was one of this year's funniest new sitcoms. The second series has just started on Channel 4, and it's just as sharp, vulgar, and uproariously funny as the first. In the opening two episodes, the pair are adjusting to family life - and try to rekindle their romance with an ill-fated minibreak to Paris.
Channel 4 has announced that the ninth and final season of Peep Show will begin on Wednesday 11 November at 10pm.
The critically-acclaimed comedy is a standout favourite, and stars David Mitchell and Robert Webb as Croydon flatmates Mark and Jez. It has won a spate of awards, including Baftas and a Royal Television Society Award for writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain.
