Motoring to comedy success
ACOMEDY writer has seen his first ever sitcom aired on BBC 1 after he approached mega star comic Peter Kay with his idea.
Tim Reid, from Bollington, and colleague Paul Coleman wrote Car Share, which made its TV debut last Wednesday.
The series, which is available to view on the BBC iPlayer, came to life after they contacted Mr Kay for advice.
He liked it so much he signed up to star in and direct it.
Peter Kay plays John Redmond with actress Sian Gibson as his workmate Kayleigh Kitson in the six part series.
The story follows the two supermarket workers who have been thrown together in a company car share scheme.
Mr Reid, 46, and Mr Coleman discovered a shared passion for comedy after working together as business consultants for innovation company What If.
Mr Reid said: “Paul had worked with Peter before on Britain’s Got the Pop Factor and Max and Paddy’s Road to Nowhere and we thought let’s show it to him and see what’s working and what is not.
“We were just hoping he would give us some feedback and opinions – whether it was a good idea or not and whether the writing was good enough or not.
“That was our hope – just to get his view on what we had done.
“So it was a real thrill when he came back and said not only did he really like it but wanted to get involved too.
“He loved the idea and asked us if we wanted him to work with us on it and you don’t say no to that – he is the best there is.”
Mr Reid said: “Myself and Paul were both interested in writing comedy and sitcoms, and came up with idea of a car share.
“We loved self-contained character-based situations like Porridge and Rising Damp, which focus on the characters and how they interact.
“We hit on the idea of a car share where two characters would be in a very tight situation and thrown together. It came together very quickly.
“Before we knew where we were we had written six episodes.”
Peter Kay said: “I really liked the idea of two people communicating in a confined space, the potential of spiralling conversations and the opportunity to find humour in the daily commute that millions of people do everyday.”
‘He loved the idea and wanted to get involved’