The Stage

TV critic Venning’s second BBC sitcom to explore conventions of radio comedy

Published Tuesday 10 November 2009 at 15:35 by Matthew Hemley

Stage Hamlet cartoonist and TV critic Harry Venning has created a new BBC Radio 4 sitcom about an inept covert surveillance team.

Called Sneakiepeeks, Venning has co-written the comedy with Neil Brand, whose credits include Stan, a radio drama about Laurel and Hardy which was adapted for television in 2006.

Venning, who also writes the long-running BBC Radio 4 series Clare in the Community, which is based on one of his own cartoon strips, said he wanted to write Sneakiepeeks to “play around with conventions of radio comedy”.

“We wanted to do a very ‘radio’ comedy and this seemed like an opportunity for lots of sound effects,” he said.

The series, which is being recorded in front of a live studio audience, is being made by the BBC and produced by Katie Tyrell, who is also the producer of Clare in the Community. It stars Richard Lumsden and Daniel Kaluuya as members of the surveillance team and will be aired in December.

Venning said he had also been commissioned to write a sixth series of Clare in the Community, which will be broadcast next year.