C4 presents the eccentric ‘Flowers’ family!

Channel 4 has commissioned new six-part comedy, Flowers, starring Olivia Colman (Peep Show, Rev) and Julian Barratt (The Mighty Boosh, Nathan Barley).

Produced by Kudos (Utopia, Humans), and written and directed by Will Sharpe, Flowers is an imaginative, cinematic comedy about an eccentric family struggling to hold themselves together.

Julian Barratt plays Maurice (author of twisted children’s books The Grubbs) and Olivia Colman plays Deborah (a music teacher); a husband and wife who are barely together but yet to divorce. As Maurice fights inner demons and dark secrets, Deborah tries to keep the family together at all costs and becomes increasingly suspicious that Maurice is in a secret homosexual relationship with his Japanese illustrator Shun (played by Will Sharpe).

They live in a creaky, messy, crumbling old house with Maurice’s fruitcake mother Hattie (Leila Hoffman) and their maladjusted twenty five year old twins Amy (Sophia di Martino – Mount Pleasant, Friday Night Dinner) and Donald (Daniel Rigby – Eric and Ernie, Undercover): both competing for the same girl and continually failing to burst through the confines of their absurdly arrested development.

Swinging from the magical to the mundane to the downright mad, the eccentric Flowers and their often self-inflicted crises, are surrounded by even stranger neighbours who become the agents of yet more everyday chaos and disaster.

Writer Will Sharpe said: “I feel very lucky to be making this show with Kudos and Channel 4. They have been unfailingly supportive and have pushed me to make bold decisions on a show that seeks both to celebrate and to challenge the traditional sitcom format. This is a comedy about people who are struggling and the situations that can arise when you refuse to admit that there are problems. Our aim is not to make light of the darkness, but to find the light within it.”

Naomi de Pear, who developed the series and will produce for Kudos said: “Flowers has an other-worldly quality to it, even though it’s about real characters and real emotions. I couldn’t be happier that Will brought this dark, hilarious and emotional vision through our doors and it’s been such a joy to develop and see it come to life with our extraordinary cast.”

Flowers is due to air in 2016.