BBC fetches dog training sitcom

The BBC has commissioned a comedy about dog trainers for BBC4 and renewed new BBC2 sitcom Count Arthur Strong for a second run.

The UK pubcaster’s controller of comedy commissioning Shane Allen has greenlit Puppy Love (6×30′), written by and starring Getting On creators Jo Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine and produced by the BBC and Woof Productions.

It focuses on two women who run a dog training school in Liverpool while also tackling their difficult teenage children and disappointing husbands.

Count Arthur Strong has been given a second season on BBC2, just a day after the first episode aired. Writers Graham Linehan and Steve Delaney have been signed up for a second 7×30′ season produced by Retort and Komedia.

Allen also recently greenlit a new series with stand-up comedian Peter Kay, which will premiere in its entirety on the BBC’s iPlayer VoD service before airing on linear channels.

Allen told a UK Broadcasting Press Guild lunch that Kay will get a second season of Car Share “if he wants one,” adding the BBC has to back major comedy talent.

And he didn’t rule out working with abrasive stand-up comic Frankie Boyle in the future. While at Channel 4, Allen commissioned Boyle’s series Tramadol Nights, which became mired in controversy after a joke about model Katie Price’s disabled son was aired and brought more than 500 complaints to regulator Ofcom.

Allen said Boyle was not a “pariah” but he hadn’t yet been pitched a project fronted by the comic.