David Isaac: Mind the Gap

Writing a sitcom script is very hard. Writing a great sitcom script is even harder. Writing a great sitcom script that turns into a great sitcom episode is so hard it is literally beyond your control.

Review: Lunch Monkeys - BBC3

David Isaac's comedy returns for its second outing on the BBC. Amusing in places, but could somebody PLEASE do some work?

One of the best things about this new comedy series is that it doesn't have an idiot laughter track. Nor is it recorded in front of an audience, which is another trick that producers use to generate artificial hype. Lunch Monkeys takes place in the postroom of a personal-injury law firm, which offers a kind of sanctuary for school leavers, oddballs and assorted misfits. They are demented with boredom and spend all day behaving like unruly fifth formers, which places Nigel Havers - the firm's senior partner - in the role of a headmaster. The writer David Isaac drew on his own experience working as a supervising solicitor in a Manchester law firm. It's broad, good-humoured, knockabout comedy without a subtle bone in its body. Technically speaking, it is somewhere between painless and quite good fun.

BBC3 goes to Manchester for fresh pair of sitcoms

Nigel Havers is the unlikely star of one of a pair of new BBC3 comedy series from Manchester indies.

Admin (working title) is a 6 x 30-minute "slacker sitcom" by Manchester-based comedy and entertainment indie Channel K. It is set in the postroom of a law firm and follows a group of young workers who try to get on by doing as little as possible.

The series was piloted in May last year and was based on the real-life experiences of writer David Isaac, who also wrote for BBC1's Not Going Out. Havers will support a yet-to-be-confirmed and relatively unknown cast in the role of Mike, the firm's owner

Writer David Isaac based this sitcom pilot - set in the admin department of a no win no fee solicitors office - on his own experience as a supervising solicitor in Manchester, so lets hope the ring of truth leads to peals of laughter.