BBC announces new '˜dark comedy' set in Bognor Regis

The BBC has announced a new '˜dark comedy' is to be set in '˜sunny, seaside Bognor Regis'.
Toby Jones has written and created the show which he will also star in. Pic: BBCToby Jones has written and created the show which he will also star in. Pic: BBC
Toby Jones has written and created the show which he will also star in. Pic: BBC

Don’t Forget the Driver is written and created by acclaimed BAFTA nominated actor Toby Jones (Detectorists, Marvellous, The Girl) and Obie award winning playwright Tim Crouch (An Oak Tree, Beginners, Adler & Gibb).

Starring Toby, it is set to explore ‘what it means to live, work and parent at a point when the entire UK population is having to come to terms with the changing colour of their passports’.

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The show, commissioned by Patrick Holland, Controller of BBC Two, and Shane Allen, Controller of BBC Comedy, will run across six 30 minute episodes and tell the story of coach driver and single dad Peter Green (Jones).

In a statement, the BBC added: “His is a life of ordinary routine; clip on ties, limp packed lunches, vehicle checks, round-trip coach journeys ferrying church groups to donkey sanctuaries and Japanese tourists to Canterbury Cathedral.

“The discovery of a dead body on the docile Bognor shoreline and an unsettling meeting with a new arrival in town throws Green’s life into chaos – a lost soul in need of assistance, who he could help. But will he? Can he?

“Don’t Forget The Driver follows a group of people struggling with their place in the world, their own sense of identity, and reveals how, in one single moment, even in the most ordinary of lives, an accidental encounter can change the course of everything.”

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Sister Pictures executive producer’s Jane Featherstone and Naomi De Pear said: “We’re delighted to be working with the wildly talented Toby and Tim on their unique, funny and probing Don’t Forget The Driver which has its perfect home in BBC Two. We fell in love with this wonderful web of people, some born and bred in Bognor and others surprised to find themselves there, led by Toby’s Greene who is forced to challenge his long-held perceptions of the world and himself.”

Toby Jones added: “I’m excited to collaborate with the celebrated playwright Tim Crouch and the fabulous Sister Pictures on our first piece of writing for television. We hope that Don’t Forget The Driver will be an unusually funny drama about small town Britain and the joys of coach travel.”

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