Will Arnett Joins BBC Football Comedy ‘The First Team’ From ‘The Inbetweeners’ Creators
The BBC has announced the cast for new series ‘The First Team‘, from Iain Morris and Damon Beesley, the award-winning creators of ‘The Inbetweeners’. Six-time Emmy nominee Will Arnett (‘Arrested Development’, ‘BoJack Horseman’) will join Shaquille Ali-Yebuah (‘The Feed’, ‘The Children Act’), Jack McMullen (‘The Souvenir’, ‘Ford v Ferrari’), Jake Short (‘SuperCool’, ‘This Is the Year’), Theo Barklem Biggs (‘Sliced’, ‘White Gold’), Chris Geere (‘You’re The Worst’, ‘Modern Family’) and Paolo Sassanelli (‘Inspector Coliandro’) in the football comedy.
‘The First Team’ follows the off-the-pitch misadventures of three young football players, played by Ali-Yebuah, McMullen and Short, as they find themselves struggling with their mercurial Italian manager Cesare (Sassanelli), the team’s eccentric American Chairman (Arnett), resident hard-man Petey Brooks (Biggs) and ineffectual coach Chris Booth (Geere).
The cast also features Tamla Kari (‘The Inbetweeners’, ‘The Musketeers’), Vadhir Derbez (‘How To Be A Latin Lover’), Phil Wang (‘8 Out Of 10 Cats’, ‘Taskmaster’), Neil Fitzmaurice (‘Peep Show’, ‘Mount Pleasant’) and Yetunde Oduwole (‘Enterprice’).
“We’re so lucky to be working with such an incredible bunch,” commented Morris and Beesley. “Some new faces and some we’ve worked with over the years, all making us laugh enormously.”
The 6×30′ episodes of ‘The First Team’ are produced by Fudge Park, and marks the first series co-written by Morris and Beesley since their massive success with The Inbetweeners series and films. Emmy award-winning producer Tom Werner (‘Roseanne’, ‘That ‘70s Show’) and Caroline Leddy (‘The Inbetweeners’, ‘Derry Girls’) are exec producing and Sam Pinnell (‘Flowers’, ‘Derry Girls’, ‘Motherland’) is producing the series, which has been commissioned by Shane Allen, Controller Comedy Commissioning at the BBC and Patrick Holland, Controller of BBC Two. Gregor Sharp is the Commissioning Editor for the BBC. BBC Studios is a partner in financing the development of the series and is handling global distribution rights.
“Iain and Damon have created a series about a group of ordinary young men in an extraordinary world. It’s completely authentic, full of observation and insight, as well as their trademark gift for comic set-pieces and they’ve assembled an amazing team to bring it to life. We can’t wait to see the results,” adds Gregor Sharp, BBC Commissioning Editor.
There is no air date yet for ‘The First Team‘, but we would presume it will be 2020 on BBC Two. We’ll let you know when we hear more.
