Comic Strip to return to Channel 4

Alternative comedy programme Comic Strip is making a return to Channel 4.

The Strip will feature some of the original writers and regulars Rik Mayall and Nigel Planer.

Comic Strip Presents will delve into the “dark underbelly of middle-class suburbia”.

It will feature original writers Peter Richardson and Pete Richens and will air as a one-off at Christmas.

Comic Srip launched on Channel 4’s opening night on November 2 in 1982.

The collective included French and Saunders, Adrian Edmondson, Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane as well as Rik Mayall.

The very first Comic Strip Presents was an Enid Blyton parody of Five Go Mad in Dorset.

It was the first of a series of 37 that included A Fistful of Travellers Cheques, The Bad News Tour, and The Strike.

The team later moved to BBC2 and produced films including Supergrass, The Pope Must Die, and Eat the Rich.

Also announced today, at Channel 4’s 2006 winter launch, is the new sitcom The I.T. Crowd.

Written by Father Ted creator Graham Linehan and produced by Ash Atalla of The Office, The I.T. Crowd is set in an office IT department occupied by computer nerds.

Channel 4 is also hoping for a revival of its Friday nights with the latest US comedy series My Name is Earl, which tells the story of petty crook Earl who is prompted to change his life after winning a minor lottery.

Channel 4 Director of Television Kevin Lygo said he hoped the show, which has been a critical and ratings hit in the US, would “anchor” Friday nights again following a “scarcity of American sitcoms”.

One-off dramas announced today include Ray Winstone playing a Premiership football manager in All in the Game.

The drama has been written to “rip open the underbelly of our national game to reveal the seedy and cut-throat dealings of a Premiership club.”

Plans are also afoot to make a single drama about soldiers returning from Iraq.

Channel 4 is also showing a new documentary The Falling Man, based on the photograph of a man who jumped from the twin towers on the September 11 terror attacks.

Programme-makers have met the family of the individual, whose image “was airbrushed out of history” after it was deemed sensational and exploitative.

Mr Lygo said: “It is about the whole story of the day through the eyes of this one individual. What makes you jump from a skyscraper? Would you jump or cling on to the last minute?”

A new documentary Karim’s Story recounts the story of the 2001 Bradford riots from the perspective of a group of young Asian men.

How to Get Divorced Without F***ing Up Your Kids sees a Texan divorce coach help three English couples go through the process while minimising the damage to their children.

In What to Do with Mum and Dad: Find Me a Family, two elderly Britons who are alone in the world are adopted by a new family.

A Marriage Made in Hell follows the personal stories of two gay members of the clergy as they marry their partners, and the documentary Gay Muslims explores the lives of gay and lesbian Muslims in the UK.

In Autopsy: Life and Death, the controversial Gunther Von Hagens will conduct autopsies on bodies wrecked by cancer, heart disease and infection.

US suburban sitcom Desperate Housewives, which has dropped viewers in the US, is also set to make a return.

Mr Lygo said: “It will be fine. If it isn’t we’ll pull it I suppose. But I’m sure we won’t.

“I’m sure the ratings will be extremely strong. When a show is that successful it can go down.”