04/09/2008

Three new comedy pilot programmes have been announced as part of the forthcoming autumn/winter season on BBC Scotland, details of which were announced yesterday.

Hailing the season’s offerings, Donalda MacKinnon, head of Programmes at BBC Scotland, said: "Our in-house teams and our partners in the independent sector will be delivering fantastic content over the coming weeks.

"Audiences are at the heart of what we do and we believe that our upcoming schedules will provide entertaining and engaging content for our viewers and listeners across Scotland."

The pilots are Burnistoun, about a fictional Scottish town, and written by Robert Florence and Iain Connell; One Star, a 3D animation, set in the year 2050, when ‘space tourism is booming’; and a comedy show featuring Glasgow-based comedian, Limmy.

Also on the comedy slate is No Holds Bard, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. With a cast that includes Ashley Jensen, Bill Paterson and Denis Lawson, the 60-minute drama follows the lives of competitors as they prepare to vie for the 2009 Cup O'Kindness – the trophy awarded to the champion in Burns recital.

Two, six-part studio-based sitcoms for BBC One network will also air over the autumn/winter. The Old Guys stars Roger Lloyd Pack and Clive Swift, as ‘two elderly delinquents’, while Caroline Quentin appears in Life of Riley, which BBC Scotland says “centres around second-time newly-weds with their dysfunctional family”.

The season also includes three network dramas from BBC Scotland. God on Trial is a 90 minute drama for BBC Two which takes, as its starting point, the story that prisoners in Auschwitz, their faith tested by their suffering, put ‘God on trial’.

Purves + Pekkala, set in New Town, Edinburgh, “proves there are some neighbourhoods people would kill to live in”, while P.A.s, for BBC Three, “follows the fortunes of four fabulous personal assistants in the City”.

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