Peter Capaldi is to direct a comedy drama pilot for Sky about a mother who adopts five children.

They F**K You Up is based on Sarah Naish's memoir But He Looks So Normal: A Bad-Tempered Parenting Guide for Adopters and Foster Parents.

The non-broadcast pilot, which will shoot next year according to US entertainment site Deadline, is written by playwright and former Cambridge Footlight Thomas Eccleshare, whose television debut, the drama Witness Number Three, aired this year on Channel 5.

Originally developed for the BBC and previously going by the title Real Children, They F**K You Up, being is made by Tod Productions, the STV Studios-backed company founded by Vera producer Elaine Collins, and Sky Studios. Cast details have yet to emerge.

Eccleshare, who collaborated with Tod and The Thick Of It star Capaldi on their upcoming Apple TV+ series Criminal Record, told Deadline that the Sky Studios project was a "funny, honest and caustic" look at parenting. Naish adopted five children and But He Looks So Normal is a self-confessed bad-tempered guide to raising kids. 

"She's sort of like the best mother in the world and the worst mother in the world," Eccleshare said. "She will leave her kids on the side of the motorway to make their own way home but also fully support them through their quite extreme difficulties."

Although Sky Studios is yet to commit to a full series, Eccleshare also disclosed that he had been commissioned to write a further two, half-hour episodes. The executive producers are Collins and Anil Gupta, who is Sky Studios' creative director for comedy. Katie Churchill (Lazy Susan) is the producer.

Though best known as an actor, Capaldi directed the Bafta-winning NHS comedy Getting On for the BBC, starring Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine, and the Oscar-winning short film Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life. He is married to Collins.

Eccleshare is also developing a second series for Sky, titled Schtum. He told Deadline that it was a "Rush Hour for the 21st century" focused on the unlikely crime-fighting duo of a Hasidic Jew, who is a member of the Shomrim neighbourhood watch group in north London, and a black female Metropolitan Police officer.

"They both go rogue against their communities to make this extremely odd couple fighting crime in a heightened Hackney," said Eccleshare, who has penned the script with his friend Tom Joseph for Monumental Television.

Schtum was originally developed for Channel 4. "The Channel 4 version was a little more Prime Suspect and this one is a bit more Fargo," he added.