Five commission improvised sitcom

Scream Films, the independent production house behind Extreme Makeover UK, is making an ad-libbed sitcom for Five.

The project is based on popular German show Schillerstrasse, which has become so popular with viewers there that more than 60 episodes have been made but it is still at pilot stage in the UK.

Five comedy controller Graham Smith explained: “The German version is very, very popular. It is a studio-based sitcom like Friends or My Family, with a live studio audience.”

Each episode of the show has a rough narrative but during the programme the director gives instructions to the actors through earpieces.

“For example, if the story was for an actor to change a light bulb, then as they mount the stepladder the director informs them that they have vertigo. The audience hears this but the other actors don’t. It is quite a simplistic style of humour,” Smith adds.

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