Sh*t on it! Filming starts for Friday Night Dinner series two

12 March 2012

Principal photography begins today on the Big Talk and Popper Pictures' produced second series of Friday Night Dinner (March 12th 2012), with six episodes due for Tx this autumn and a Christmas Special for December 2012.

Featuring a stellar ensemble cast including Tamsin Greig (Black Books, Episodes), Simon Bird (Inbetweeners), Paul Ritter (Pulling), Tom Rosenthal, and Mark Heap (Green Wing, Spaced), Friday Night Dinner is a truly original series about growing up but not growing away. Each episode takes place over the course of a Friday night, as twenty-something brothers Adam (Bird) and Jonny (Rosenthal) go round to their parents' house for Friday night dinner.

In the new series, Adam goes on a date with a girl who smells like mum, Jonny starts going out with an older woman, Mum is forced out the house by a mouse, Dad starts drying fish in the downstairs cupboard, Jim makes a birthday cake for his dog, Wilson, Grandma has an affair with a married man, and we meet Dad's mother - 'Horrible Grandma'.

Friday Night Dinner is written and produced by Robert Popper, whose combined credits as a writer/producer/script editor include Look Around You, Peep Show, South Park, The Inbetweeners, Him&Her and The IT Crowd. He is also the author - as Robin Cooper - of the bestselling, Timewaster Letters books.

Robert Popper said, "Having spent the past eight months in almost solitary confinement as I wrote the show, I'm so excited to be out the house again amongst living human beings. Friday Night Dinner was such a thrill to make last year, and I'm chomping at the bit to start again. And by 'chomping at the bit', I mean I am actually wearing a horse's harness right now, which I am chewing manically, in excitement."

Nerys Evans, Commissioning Editor Comedy Channel 4 added "We're delighted we're going to spend some more Friday Nights with the Goodmans, we can't wait to find out if Adam has had any luck with the' Females' yet, and if Dad's cooled down enough to start wearing a shirt at dinner. After such a confident and funny first series we can't wait to see more."

Friday Night Dinner is executive produced by Kenton Allen, Chief Executive of Big Talk Productions, alongside Caroline Leddy (Inbetweeners) and Nira Park (Hot Fuzz, Shaun Of The Dead).  Martin Dennis (Black Books, Men Behaving Badly) joins series 2 as director.

Premiering to a consolidated 2.8 million viewers, Friday Night Dinner marked Channel 4's biggest comedy launch in the last seven years and has since gone on to be nominated at the British Comedy Awards for Best New Comedy Programme, Best Sitcom, Best Comedy Actress for Tamsin Greig and Best Comedy Breakthrough Artist for Tom Rosenthal. It was nominated for Best Situation Comedy at the National Television Awards, and has gained a Best Comedy writer nod for Robert Popper at The Royal Television Society Award and a Rose D'or nomination for Best Sitcom.

The seven episode series will shoot in North London from March to May to transmit Autumn 2012 on Channel 4.