Irish Sitcom To Launch on Channel 4

(London Irish to star Being Human's Sineed Keenan)

Reposted from Channel 4 Press site 

Nerys Evans, Deputy Head of Comedy, announces new comedy commission with a new series called London Irish for Channel 4. The 6 x30min series is produced by Company Pictures.

London Irish is about a hard-drinking, hard-living ex-pat community of Northern Irish 20-somethings in London and written by someone who knows all about that, Derry girl Lisa McGee. For these four friends it's not easy navigating their way through London life, particularly when they’re too drunk to know where they’re going, or remember where they’ve been. If there had been a plan, it wouldn't have been this. They have shit jobs, no money, and are surrounded by English people. In fact there's only one thing worse than living in London with the English. And that's living in Ireland with the Irish. That doesn't even bear thinking about.

Join Conor (Kerr Logan), his older sister Bronagh (Sinead Keenan), his best friend Packy (Peter Campion) or Patrick to his mother, and Niamh (Kat Regan) as they leap between drinks and hangovers and begin to realise maybe they are getting too old for this. Maybe they all need to take a long hard look at themselves. And they will… definitely… probably… as soon as they shake this hangover.

Deputy Head of Comedy, Nerys Evans said: “It's rare to find a writer that creates such a vivid array of characters, they don't just leap off the page they grab you by the collar and drag you drown the pub for some midday shots. Lisa's writing is brilliantly funny and we're looking forward to more London Irish shenanigans.”

Executive Producer Caroline Leddy said: “Lisa is one of the funniest writers I've met in ages. And she's a girl. And she writes brilliant jokes about boozing and shagging. I wish it was on the telly right now."

Series Producer, Liz Lewin said: “Lisa’s really captured the oddness of the English and London from her point of view. How still, after being here years, she doesn’t understand why we all complain about the tube ("But Liz, it's great!") or constantly feel the need to use the word 'literally' or get so excited about pub quizzes ("It's like an exam. In a pub") or, and this is the big one, why we feel the need for so much order in our lives when her and her tribe seem to relish the … disorder. About the fact that while we all speak the same language somehow things seem to get lost in translation…

Writer Lisa McGee said: “Ultimately, it's a show about young people, who value having the craic above everything else. The characters are children of the peace process, living in one of the greatest cities in the world and they want to have a good time. Yeah they're screwed up, they drink too much, they swear too much…but I really hope people watch the show and think, "I don't half want a night out with that lot" and love watching these four characters as much as I love writing for them.”

London Irish was commissioned by Nerys Evans, Deputy Head of Comedy and is produced by Company Pictures. The Executive Producers are Caroline Leddy and Liz Lewin. The series will transmit later in 2013.