Our Men

Following the lives and loves of the British Embassy team in Tazbekistan, one of the ex-Soviet ‘Stans’, Our Men stars Peep Show’s David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

Mitchell plays Keith Davis, the newly appointed British Ambassador of Tazbekistan – ambitious, he intends to make his mark in this posting. Standing beside him is Neil Tilly, Deputy Head of Mission (Robert Webb).

While Davis is out representing Britain, Neil is in the Embassy pulling the levers and managing the staff. It’s a tough posting where they are far more likely to be drinking lethal vodka in the President’s hunting yurt than having G&Ts on the lawn.

Heading Out

Sue Perkins takes the lead role in this six-part self-penned comedy.

Perkins plays Sara – a veterinarian so skilled, she can spay a tortoise one-handed. She’s successful, she’s popular – there’s just one chink in her armour – she’s too scared to tell her parents she’s gay. On the evening of her 40th birthday, Sara’s friends give her an ultimatum: either she tells her parents when they come to visit in six weeks’ time, or they will. To help Sara achieve this goal, they’ve saved up to buy a series of sessions with Toria, the eccentric and mildly-qualified lifestyle coach / therapist, and so the countdown begins…

> Buy Heading Out on DVD on Amazon.

Hooligans’ Island

Next year it will be 18 years since Richie Rich and Eddie Hitler last graced our television screens in Bottom. So what has happened to these titans of comedy?

They are abandoned, lost, shipwrecked on the tropical hell hole that is Hooligans Island and they are still hitting each other over the head with large metal objects, still chasing women, even though there are none on the island, and still waiting for that job seekers allowance cheque as they distil something quite like alcohol, only worse.

Starring Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson, this six-part series will air next year.

Count Arthur Strong

Steve Delaney, creator of Sony Award-winning radio character Count Arthur Strong, is working with Graham Linehan (Father Ted, Black Books) to bring the character to television for this six-part series.

Count Arthur Strong is an elderly pompous show-business legend… though really just an out-of-work deluded thespian originally from Doncaster, in the north of England. Delaney’s geriatric creation is a mixture of physical and mental clumsiness, mirthful malapropisms and Tourettic tics, whose pride forbids him from ever conceding fallibility, even as his world crashes around him.

Which of BBC Two’s new comedies are you most looking forward to? Let us know below…