Seekers returns to Radio 4 for second series

A second series of Seekers, the BBC Radio 4 sitcom set in an Essex job centre, is being recorded.

Life just keeps getting worse for Stuart (Mathew Horne). Since being fired from his position at the job centre when the series began, Stuart has found himself adrift. His friends seem to prefer the company of Janice, a drug-addled senile alcoholic and former "human guinea-pig". Worse still, his old job has been given to Gary Probert, a socially dysfunctional light-bulb fetishist who can't cross the road without supervision. From then on, things get weirder.

Horne does a sterling job of making Stuart likeable, despite his lack of any redeeming features. If you're a fan of Clare in the Community, you might well find a new favourite in Seekers. Dark, surreal and a more than a little cartoonish, it's likely to divide listeners, but this has the makings of a sure-fire cult hit.

It is rare for me to recommend a programme that I have not been able to listen to but this new series strikes me as a risk worth taking. Why? Because it stars Mathew Horne (Gavin & Stacey), whose comic acting I greatly admire, and it is produced by Katie Tyrrell, who has Just a Minute and Clare in the Community among her many Radio 4 production credits.

The idea sounds strong too: Horne plays Stuart, a man recently made redundant by the Job Centre who finds himself in the invidious position of having to queue up with his former clients to be interviewed by his former colleagues. Watch this space...