EXCLUSIVE: Channel 4 is tapping into the “new wave” of British comedy, according to the network’s comedy boss Charlie Perkins.
Delivering her first set piece interview nearly three years into her role, Perkins unveiled a trio of new shows from up-and-coming comedy creators, which she said are firmly rooted in the modern day and are not overly costly in an era of super inflated budgets. These are Pigeon from Katy Wix and Adam Drake, Stepping Up from stand-up Josh Pugh and Break Clause from Jess Bray and Alice Snedden.
While Channel 4’s drama budget was recently doubled under the Netflix-bound scripted supremo Ollie Madden, Perkins’ comedy team was not handed the same riches, and has therefore had to be more “nimble,” Perkins told us.
“With the [new Channel 4] Fast Forward strategy, there was a big push to drama and while that didn’t mean budget got taken away from us, we’re now focused on making ‘fewer, bigger, better,’” Perkins said, as Deadline spoke to her at Channel 4’s Horseferry Road HQ in London yesterday morning. “We are trying to be a bit more creative with how we think about budgets and partner with people. Limitations breed creativity and I feel very strongly that everything we’ve got is strong. I feel like British comedy has always been able to be a bit more nimble [than drama].”
Watch on Deadline
With this in mind, Perkins outlined the three new shows, which she said are rooted in modern Britain, deal with relationship dynamics and have a “sense of purpose.”
Pigeon comes from Stath Lets Flats star Wix and Drake (Extraordinary). It follows Kathryn (Wix) as she heads from the big city of Chester back to South Wales and the family home she thought she’d escaped. Waiting for her there is mum Mandy, an attention-seeking dance teacher with a touch of suburban glamor, and younger sister Aubrey, a teenage boy trapped in an adult woman’s body.
Stepping Up, meanwhile, is being created by and stars social media and TV comedian Pugh. It tells the story of an over-enthusiastic stepdad bringing well intentioned chaos to his new, and previously harmonious, family unit.
Finally, Channel 4 has taken Break Clause – revealed by Deadline as a pilot back in June – to series. Starring Samuel Bottomley (How to Have Sex) and Lara Ricote, the flatshare comedy from Bray and Starstruck’s Snedden that follows a couple who break up on the first night of moving in together is being co-produced with Germany’s ZDFneo, neatly illustrating Perkins’ desire to get creative when it comes to boosting budgets.
The new shows are being produced by Boffola Pictures, Roughcut Television and BBC Studios Comedy Productions respectively, who collectively make hits including Am I Being Unreasonable?, Stath Lets Flats and Here We Go
“Current undercurrents”
Break Clause is described as being about “the cost of loving in the cost-of-living crisis” and Perkins said all the new shows have “current undercurrents,” especially regarding themes around being young and living in the UK in the post-pandemic era. Another new series, Schooled, which has just unveiled a splashy cast including Bridgerton star Charithra Chandran and Munya Chawawa, is based on its creator’s real-life experience of working in pastoral care at a London academy.
“I think it’s important that all of these shows don’t feel ‘too cool for school’, elitist or snobby,” said Perkins, who joined Channel 4 from Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared producer Blink Industries three years ago to replace Fiona McDermott, who exited for Apple TV+.
Rooting her comedy commissions firmly in reality and eschewing the temptation to make them too high concept allows Channel 4 to keep the costs down while reflecting the lives of its audience, Perkins added. She told Deadline she is now actively telling producers not to pitch ‘dramedies’, which has also been reflected in the strategy of Jon Petrie, her opposite number at the BBC, who has leaned towards more traditional sitcoms during his tenure.
“‘Dramedies’ have tended to come with higher production budgets and that means by their nature they are slightly more limited,” added Perkins. “It’s harder to get more than one or two seasons over the line, so thinking about the more commercial side of our slate, we want to find things that are simpler and more out-and-out comedy.” She flagged long-running hit sitcom Friday Night Dinner as the sort of show Channel 4 wants to keep emulating.
This desire helps feed into one of Perkins’ key goals, “nurturing new comedy talent,” which she said is rooted in Channel 4’s DNA at a time when audiences are more cannibalized than ever and traditional broadcasters need to work harder to stand out amongst the crowd.
“There was that Fleabag era where everyone was like, ‘What’s the next Fleabag?,’ but I feel very strongly that we shouldn’t be thinking like that,” she added. “It’s more about how we find the next Phoebe Waller-Bridge.”
With this in mind, Perkins said Channel 4 has unearthed a “new wave” of comedians such as Wix, Pugh, Ricote, Sam Campbell and Leo Reich, the latter of whom is making a different Gen-Z flatshare comedy for A24 and Channel 4 titled It Gets Worse. Perkins dubbed this new gang of comedy talent the ‘Brit Art’ crew and reflected on how the pandemic stymied this kind of collaboration.
“A big part of showcasing new talent is through gangs and collectives,” said Perkins. “There was the [Stath Lets Flats creator] Jamie Demetriou era, which was one gang I worked with a lot, but it feels like the pandemic knocked out maybe a couple of generations of that. People couldn’t meet their contemporaries and became much more solo in their performances.”
Channel 4’s role here is crucial, Perkins said, given that the traditional pipeline of live comedy to radio to TV has been badly severed in recent times. She said performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, currently on in Scotland, has become “prohibitively expensive” for young stand-ups, while there are fewer comedy entertainment shows nowadays to platform talent.
Comedians have instead turned to social media to stake their claim for superstardom and Perkins said Channel 4 is meeting them where they are. Her team is working hand in glove with the Channel 4 digital division, which we revealed recently launched a comedy YouTube channel. “There’s so many other places that we need to be seeding talent and helping people develop their work,” she added.
Mitchell & Webb
Blooding young comics is also crucial to Channel 4’s new David Mitchell and Robert Webb sketch comedy series, which comes 15 years after the pair’s hit BBC show That Mitchell and Webb Look concluded and is undoubtedly Perkins’ splashiest commission to date.
The six-part series, Mitchell & Webb Are Not Helping, will feature the two doyens of British comedy along with newer names such as Ricote, Ghosts star Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Taskmaster contestant Stevie Martin and Krystal Evans.
Perkins revealed that Succession showrunner Jesse Armstrong, who co-created Mitchell and Webb’s cult Channel 4 comedy Peep Show, was the first to alert Channel 4 content boss Ian Katz to the pair wanting to resurrect their sketch show roots.
“Having the next generation of up-and-coming sketch performers and writers in it was there from the inception,” she added. “We did a read through early on and it was the funniest read through I’ve ever been to, so then it became about how we would make it and what about this show at Channel 4 makes it different from the BBC version.”
Perkins stressed that the idea was always being forged for Channel 4 and Mitchell and Webb did not have discussions with the BBC beforehand. A teaser sketch titled ‘The Stresses of Airport Security’ has so far amassed 4.2 million viewers across social platforms, according to Perkins, who said social can be used to boost sketch comedy today in a way it couldn’t when That Mitchell and Webb Look launched nearly 20 years ago.
Landing Mitchell and Webb’s return to sketch has helped offset the loss of How to Get to Heaven From Belfast – Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee’s latest show which was initially being made for Channel 4 but switched to Netflix. When this news broke last year, Channel 4 cited “changes in editorial direction,” “rising costs” and “the recent cooling in the U.S. co-production market” for the show switch.
“That was really sad,” said Perkins. “But our relationship with Lisa is still so strong. Life is long and hopefully we’ll do something else together.”
She remains open to resurrecting other older shows in a similar vein to Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping, but only if “the new generation are as valuable and important” as the original stars.
For now, Perkins remains laser focused on leading the charge to keep British comedy standing out in an era of rapidly saturated viewing. “A rising tide carries all ships,” she added. “It’s really hard currently in UK comedy so it feels like we all need to unite and celebrate each other’s wins.”