BBC Two Sets May Premiere Date For Football Comedy ‘The First Team’ From ‘The Inbetweeners’ Creators
BBC Two has set a May UK premiere date for brand new football comedy ‘The First Team‘, which comes from ‘The Inbetweeners’ creators Iain Morris and Damon Beesley, and stars a host of young talent, alongside the brilliant Will Arnett.
The series follows the off-the-pitch misadventures of three young footballers Mattie, Jack and Benji, and their adventures with terrifying team hard-man Petey, mercurial Italian manager Cesare and eccentric chairman Mark Crane.
The series stars Shaquille Ali-Yebuah (‘The Feed’, ‘The Children Act’) as Benji, Jack McMullen (‘The Souvenir’, ‘Ford v Ferrari’) as Jack, and Jake Short (‘SuperCool’, ‘This Is the Year’) as Mattie. They are joined by Theo Barklem Biggs (‘Sliced’, ‘White Gold’) as Petey, Chris Geere (‘You’re The Worst’, ‘Modern Family’) as ineffectual coach Chris Booth, Paolo Sassanelli as manager Cesare, and six-time Emmy nominee Will Arnett (‘Arrested Development’, ‘BoJack Horseman’) as chairman Mark Crane.
Additional cast includes Tamla Kari (‘The Inbetweeners’, ‘The Musketeers’) as Olivia Talbot, Vadhir Derbez (‘How To Be A Latin Lover’) as Carlos Velez, Phil Wang (‘8 Out of 10 Cats’, ‘Task Master’) as Brian, and Neil Fitzmaurice (‘Peep Show’, ‘Mount Pleasant’) as Darren.
In episode one, New signing Mattie Sullivan arrives at the club, but a meeting with eccentric chairman Mark Crane leads him to wonder if he’s been signed by mistake. As if that wasn’t bad enough, club hard-man Petey Brooks takes a dislike to him and legendary Italian manager Cesare is nowhere to be found.
Mattie strikes up a friendship with fellow team member Benji Achebe, who fancies himself as a ladies man despite the fact that he still lives at home with his mum. And they both agree to help out the shy number 16 Jack Turner in an attempt to solve an embarrassing problem.
Emmy award-winning producer Tom Werner (‘Roseanne’, ‘That ‘70s Show’) and Caroline Leddy (The Inbetweeners, Derry Girls) are executive 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.
‘The First Team‘ Season 1 premieres Thursday, 28th May 2020 at 9:30pm on BBC Two.
