Sky1 counts Chickens

UK satcaster Sky1 has ordered Chickens, a comedy from stars of The Inbetweeners that Channel 4 commissioned as a pilot in 2010.

The 6×30’ series will be written by and star Inbetweeners pair Joe Thomas and Simon Bird, plus their writing partner Jonny Sweet.

The trio plays First World War conscientious objectors from a quiet English village who live in fear of their neighbours’ daily scorn.

Big Talk Productions, which worked with Bird on C4 comedy Friday Night Dinner, is attached to produce the series in December, with Big Talk CEO Kenton Allen executive producing. The series will debut on BSkyB’s flagship net Sky1 in 2013.

Sky’s head of comedy Lucy Lumsden ordered the commission, which comes after C4 passed it over having commissioned a pilot as part of its Comedy Showcase brand in October 2010.

Chickens now joins Sky’s expanding comedy slate, which also includes Trollied, This is Jinsy, A Touch of Cloth, Starlings, Spy, The Café and Stella. These have all been commissioned since the satcaster revealed last year it was upping its annual homegrown content spend to £600m (US$1bn) by 2014.