EXCLUSIVE: Writer-directors Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin are developing a feature comedy with similar techniques and themes to hit BBC series.
Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, the team behind hit TV series Outnumbered, are developing a BBC Films-backed feature comedy with David Thompson’s Origin Pictures.
The film is not a straight adaptation of the TV series and will not include the show’s cast but it will feature some of the same “techniques” as the semi-improvised Outnumbered, which has seen four seasons to date.
Comedy What We Did On Our Holiday (working title) will follow a family going through a tough time who undertake a road trip to Scotland for the grandfather’s 75th birthday but encounter chaos along the way. It will retain the same family structure as the series with two harassed parents trying to manage their three astute children.
Jenkin told Screen: “We’re taking the techniques from Outnumbered to make a distinctive but broadly appealing British comedy that reflects much of contemporary family life, and it should be unlike anything that’s been seen before. Andy and I are excited to be working with Origin and the BBC on this”.
Origin chief David Thompson said: “It’s brilliant to be working with the supremely talented duo of Guy and Andy who created BBC’s smash hit comedy Outnumbered, and using the same principles here to produce something really fresh, emotional and funny for the big screen. It’s encouraging there has been such success for British comedies over the last few years, ranging from In The Loop to The Inbetweeners, and we’re confident this film will reach a really wide audience.”
The award-winning BBC series starring stand-up Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner has consistently scored between 20-25% audience-share in the UK, while Fox TV commissioned two adaptations of the show in the US, the most recent being a 2011 TV movie directed by Larry Charles, written by Hamilton and Jenkin.
The UK show scored a series-high 7.02m (28.12%) viewers for its Christmas special last year.
Last year the feature version of hit E4 comedy series The Inbetweeners became a UK box office sensation taking £45m.
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