Two comedians get into a car...Peter Kay's sitcom Car Share follows previous comedy vehicles

Alice Jones' Arts Diary

Comedian Peter Kay is to star in a new BBC One comedy Car Share (Getty Images)

What’s the best vehicle for comedy? An online sitcom set in a car, perhaps.

Peter Kay has announced his new series, Car Share, which will debut on BBC’s iPlayer, about two supermarket workers forced to co-commute.

“The idea of two people car sharing to work each day really appealed to me, as it highlights the comedy in the minutiae of the daily trek and allows the spiralling conversations of life to unwind in all of their glory”, said Kay.

The idea appealed to Jerry Seinfeld too. His last sitcom, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, also focussed on spiralling conversations in front of a dashboard and screened online at Sony’s Crackle.com. A second, 24-episode, series is now in the pipeline.

Mormon notes

You can take the show out of Broadway, but you can’t take Broadway out of the show. At the The Book of Mormon this week, the funniest, flashiest new musical in years, I was struck by some cultural differences – in the programme.

The British cast and crew listed their credits in the usual dry way, but the Americans gave a little extra. Take co-director Trey Parker whose biography ends, “It was a long-time dream of Trey’s to write a musical for Broadway. Trey is originally from Conifer, California”.

Others express eternal gratitude to friends and family, regret that their two kids won’t be allowed to see the foul-mouthed show “for a long time” or, in the case of the two leading men, namecheck “Mom, Dad and Jeffrey” and “Wally the dog”, respectively. There is something quite nice about learning a little titbit about the real people behind the characters you have just spent the evening with. I hope the trend might catch on in the West End.

Steptoe lives

Now here’s how to accept a prize. At the climax of the Chortle awards this week a starstruck Harry Enfield presented Ray Galton and Alan Simpson with the Lifetime Achievement Award. In return, the octogenarian creators of Steptoe and Son gave the crowd a masterclass in keeping it short and snappy. “There are so many people to thank for this award”, said Simpson. “But unfortunately they are all dead.”

Also in the arts diary:

Superhuman Tom Tagholm takes a leap into a clear blue sky with his new The Parachutist

Being John Malkovich just got easier...actor releases line of gentlemen's beachwear

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