Olivia Colman was honoured with two awards at this evening’s Arqiva British Academy Television Awards for Supporting Actress for her role as Sue in Accused (Mo’s Story) and for Female Performance in a Comedy Programme for her portrayal as Sally in Twenty Twelve, a programme which also collected an award for Situation Comedy.

Steve Coogan received the award for Male Performance in a Comedy Programme and The Revolution will be Televised won the Comedy Programme category.

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The hit BBC rom-com drama, Gavin & Stacey, has been commissioned for a US remake, the Sun newspaper reports.

The British viewing public fell in love with the simple characters, playing out the simple story of girl meets boy when it first aired back in 2007.
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Comedian and former Doctor Who star, Catherine Tate, has signed up alongside Lee Mack to star in the UK remake of the hit US sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond, the Sun newspaper reports.

The series, named The Smiths at the moment, will feature Mack as a sports writer called Lee (not Raymond) and Catherine as his fed-up wife.
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Former X Factor contestant, Diana Vickers, has landed her first television acting role in a new Sky comedy about promotion girls.

Diana rose to fame during the fifth series of the hit ITV reality talent show, in which she was a semi-finalists, before landing the title role in a West End revival of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice for which she won the award for “London Newcomer of the Year” at the Theatregoers’ Choice Awards.
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The Inbetweeners are set for Australia in their new sequel film, The Sun newspaper reports!

According to the publication the second instalment is set to be quite different than the first film which saw Will (Simon Bird), Simon (Joe Thomas), Neil (Blake Harrison) and Jay (James Buckley) holidaying in Greece after their exams, as this time they will be heading down-under for a spot of backpacking, reportedly!
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In my review of Vicious, I noted how ITV are introducing a plethora of new comedy. While Vicious may be campy and old-fashioned, we have also been given the more contemporary The Job Lot. The Job Lot centres around a West Midlands Job Centre where the employees are almost as hopeless as their clients. Despite that premise not sounding exactly unique, there’s a likeability to The Job Lot that hasn’t been present in a lot of recent terrestrial sitcoms.

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It’s fair to say that this year has already been a pretty good one in terms of British TV drama. Over the last few weeks this has been proved by the amount of buzz surrounding the finale of Broadchurch, which got everyone talking. However, while TV drama may well be on a high, our current comedy output is sorely lacking. Recent efforts such as Plebs, Being Eileen and The Wright Way have all fallen flat while I’m still baffled at why Mrs Brown’s Boys is as popular as it is. However ITV are now promoting a double bill of comedy on a Monday night which kicks off with old-fashioned sitcom Vicious.

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Laugh In The Face Of Mondays!

ITV are planning to brighten up the downer of your post weekend haze with two great new comedy offerings.

The evening will start with Vicious, a brand new studio sitcom that stars legendary Lord Of The Rings star Ian McKellen and The King’s Speech actor Derek Jacobi. The acclaimed pair will be joined by Frances de la Tour in the series which tells the story of ageing partners, Freddie and Stuart, two men who have lived together in a small Covent Garden flat for nearly 50 years. Freddie used to be an aspiring actor and Stuart worked in a bar when they first met but their heyday is behind them and their lives now consist of reading books, walking their dog and arguing.

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The Job Lot is ITV’s new sitcom which is set in a busy West Midlands Job Centre. The show focuses on the relationships between the people that work there and the people who don’t work anywhere else. It’s the work, or lack of it that brings the characters together and their relationships, or lack of them, around which the series revolves.

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Tonight on ITV will see the start of Vicious – a brand new studio-based sitcom that stars respected luminaries of British Stage and Screen, Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi. The pair star in this unashamedly wicked comedy alongside Frances de la Tour

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It’s been announced by the BBC that comedians Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer are heading back to our screens with a new sitcom entitled, House of Fools.

Commissioned by BBC2 Controller Janice Hadlow and Comedy Commissioning Controller Shane Allen, the new show is set to go into production this year with an air date expected for next year.

Here’s what the BBC have to say of the show… Read more & comment »

This post was written by guest blogger and reality TV showbiz observer Daniel Cohen. Catch up with him on Twitter here!

Why he has actually created a FIRST for LGTB TV and was it written for Rowan Atkinson ??

In the last few days review writers have laid into Ben Elton as if he had become the baby-eating Bishop of Bath and Wells himself.

In actual fact he has just written a new sitcom, “The Wright Way”, his first in years. A sitcom that would have been well received coming from any other writer, but because it comes from Ben Elton it will never be good enough… Read more & comment »

Sassy American comedian and creator of 2 Broke Girls, Whitney Cummings, is back and this time she’s playing leading lady in brand new sitcom, Whitney.

Following a fictionalised version of Whitney herself, the new comedy series sees the world
through the eyes of the funny lady as she learns to adapt to life with her supportive, live-in boyfriend, Alex.

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Inbetweeners fans brace yourselves, James Buckley has hinted that a reunion might be on the cards after all.

The actor, who plays compulsive liar Jay in the hit show along with Simon Bird, Joe Thomas and Blake Harrison, had always been the adamant one that, after the film was released, there would be no going back to the side-splitting Channel 4 series.
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Iconic British comedian, Jennifer Saunders, has put rumours to rest that there will be a remake of her hit comedy sketch show, French & Saunders, by saying that the BBC couldn’t afford a new series.

French & Saunders ran for 20 years from 1987 – 2007 and featured Saunders, who is married to fellow British comedian Ade Edmondson, and her comedy partner Dawn French.
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