Sky making 'SPY'

Sky have started work on a brand new sitcom called SPY. The comedy concerns a single father called Tim (Whites' Darren Boyd), struggling to win the respect of his nine-year-old son, who accidentally finds himself being trained as a MI5 agent. Tim must then juggle his responsibilities as a father with his new vocation as a trainee spy.

Robert Lindsay (My Family) will play "The Examiner", MI5's unorthodox boss. Other co-stars are Dolly Wells (Campus) as Tim's ex-wife Judith, Tom Goodman-Hill (Ideal) as Judith's new boyfriend, Matthew Baynton (Gavin & Stacey) as Tim's anti-social friend, Rebekah Staton (Pulling) as a fellow spy and potential love-interest called Caitlin, and Rosie Cavaliero (Bellamy's People) as a psychopathic social worker called Paula who's infatuated with Tim.

SPY is written by Simeon Goulden, who's previously written sketches for The Armstrong & Miller Show and a few episodes of Secret Diary Of A Call Girl.

Jimmy Mulville, Executive Producer of Hat Trick Productions:

"The writing, the characters and the situations in SPY mark it out as one of the funniest and strangest takes on the Family Comedy. Dysfunctional doesn't begin to do it justice!"

Lucy Lumsden, Head of Comedy for Sky:

"In SPY we have an exciting young cast and a brilliant new writer in Simeon Goulden. It is the first of several new British comedies aimed at a family audience to sit alongside our fantastic US line-up including Modern Family, The Middle and The Simpsons."

As Lumsden says, SPY is the first of several new UK comedies Sky have in store for audiences, including Mount Pleasant (starring IT Crowd's Chris O'Dowd), supermarket sitcom Trollied, and the surreal islander sitcom This Is Jinsy.

SPY certainly sounds promising on paper. The concept may be reheated spy-comedy fluff (a middle-aged Chuck without the sci-fi element?), but the cast are a talented bunch of people, and it's always nice to see a relatively new writer getting a show of their own. Hopefully Simeon Goulden's a funny writer, which is the key thing any sitcom needs.

SPY is entering production now, scheduled to broadcast in the autumn on Sky1/HD.