Mitchell & Webb return in ‘bold and British’ Channel 4 content slate

A Russell T Davies drama about feuding neighbours and a David Mitchell and Robert Webb sketch show are among a slate of projects unveiled by Channel 4 at its season launch showcase.

The PSB revealed details of its cross-genre slate which also includes a series following Alan Carr on the search for the UK’s hidden geniuses, and a pair of competition formats from CPL and Studio Lambert.

Speaking at the broadcaster’s ‘Extravagander’ event content chief Ian Katz said the projects underline the PSB’s “commitment to telling original British stories and backing bold, new British ideas”.

He continued: “Building on Channel 4’s reputation as the home of the most mischievous, innovative and outright obsessional reality TV around – and at a time when TV schedules can seem packed with reboots and remakes of foreign formats – we’re backing three British-grown formats of scale, alongside the launch of Honesty Box and the return of Tempting Fortune next month.

“At the same time, our substantial investment in scripted programming will deliver double the number of drama hours on the channel and bold new comedy plays like David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s return to sketch.

“This is a slate designed to transform Channel 4 from a channel with a streaming app to a genuine public service streamer – delivering distinctive stories, the very best established and emerging talent and, most importantly, oodles of unadulterated fun.”

Scripted

Russell T Davies returns to C4 with Tip Toe, which continues the legacy of his previous landmarks It’s A Sin and Queer As Folk in its exploration of the lives of LGBTQ+ people.

The five-part series examines the corrosive forces facing the LGBTQ+ community today as what were thought to be long-buried prejudices creep back in.

Based in Manchester, Tip Toe follows neighbours Leo, a Canal Street bar owner, and Clive, an electrician and dad of two teenage sons. As their lives should be settling down, the world around them is growing more tense. Words become weapons, opinions become radicalised, and the two neighbours gradually become deadly enemies in a tense, suburban thriller which challenges everything previously thought to be safe.

The series reunites Davies with long-time collaborator Nicola Shindler, whose ITV Studios-backed indie Quay Street Productions is behind the drama. It was commissioned by Ollie Madden, director of C4 drama and Film4, and Gemma Boswell, commissioning editor. Davies, Shindler and Peter Hoar will exec produce.

Madden said the series is “funny, gripping, full of heart and an urgent call to arms”.

Tip Toe joins Madden’s recently unveiled six-strong slate of scripted projects, including a love story from Jack Thorne and a second series of Peter Kosminsky’s The Undeclared War.

Davies added: “This is a show I had to write because the world is getting stranger, tougher and darker, and frankly, the fight is on.”

Peep Show creators David Mitchell and Robert Webb are also returning to the channel that launched their careers, with an untitled 6 x 30-minute sketch show. The comedians will be supported by an ensemble cast of performers: Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Lara Ricote, Stevie Martin and Krystal Evans.

The series is co-produced by That Mitchell & Webb Company and ITVS’s Big Talk Studios, which last week won the Best Comedy gong at the Broadcast Award, for Mitchell’s BBC1 smash Ludwig.

C4 head of comedy Charlie Perkins commissioned the show with Joe Hullait, commissioning exec. Mitchell, Webb and Big Talk’s Kenton Allen will exec produce, while Gareth Edwards produces.

Mitchell and Webb said: “It’s a perilous time for the industry and so it’s our hope that relaunching the trickiest genre of comedy is a brilliant piece of counterintuitive commissioning.”

Perkins, who has previously outlined her intent to resurrect comedy sketch shows, said: “Sketch has historically been the bedrock of generations of comedy writers and performers – giving so many household names their first credits and platforms and Channel 4 has always been at the heart of this.”

Reality and entertainment

Along with CPL’s “predator versus prey” competition format The Hunt (w/t), announced earlier today, C4 confirmed details of Studio Lambert’s “part Knives Out, part Succession” title The Inheritance. In November, Broadcast revealed the All3Media indie was working on a social power play format for the PSB.

12-part reality competition The Inheritance sees a dozen strangers arrive at a country estate in hopes of inheriting a chunk of a vast fortune from ‘The Deceased’, who has left video messages for the players from beyond the grave.

To release money from the inheritance, contestants must work together to complete a series of challenges; the better they perform, the more money is released. But ‘The Deceased’ has one stipulation to the inheritance: to win the game they must persuade all others that only they should be entrusted with the money.

Studio Lambert produces with GroupM Motion Entertainment. The Inheritance was commissioned by Steve Handley, head of reality and entertainment, with Tom Beck, head of live events and commissioning editor, and Genna Gibson, commissioning editor.

Tim Harcourt, Darrell Olsen, Kim Murphy and Joe Wildman exec produce for Studio Lambert alongside Martin Oxley for GroupM. Production Executives are Studio Lambert’s Shona Kemp and Ellie Rowe and GroupM’s Karen Bonnici for GroupM. All3Media International will handle global sales.

Rounding out the reality and entertainment slate is a co-commission between C4’s docs and fact-ent departments, Britain’s Secret Genius.

The six-part Mothership TV series sees Alan Carr and Susie Dent test the nation’s brainpower as they seek to find secret geniuses from everyday life who are smarter than the UK’s top boffins but never knew it.

Contributors will take part in immersive and ambitious challenges that will test all aspects of their brain power.

Britain’s Secret Genius is made in collaboration with Mensa, and is billed by C4 as an “uplifting and surprising journey of self-discovery” that will “challenge us all to rethink what it means to be a genius”.

It is co-produced with GroupM and will be exec produced by Kelly Webb-Lamb, Jon Cahn and Melanie Darlaston. Neil Rubin-Smith produces. Casting is currently underway.