Money troubles!

Channel 4 has commissioned new eight-part comedy-drama Loaded, written and executive produced by Jon Brown (Peep Show, Misfits).

The 45-minute episodes follow four life-long friends: Josh, Vinny, Ewan and Watto, who become multi-millionaires overnight when they sell their start-up videogame company for a clean £246 million. Overnight, the four friends are transformed from “people who play games” to “serious players in the game…” – or are they?

Almost immediately, the sweet smell of success takes on a bitter, slightly unpleasant tang. Josh, hyper-sensitive and riddled with “millionaire’s guilt”, finds himself crippled by the burden of his wealth and its “wider socio-economic implications.” Vinny lets his most extravagant desires run amok and buys a bespoke golden Viking helmet, but can a Nando’s Black Card buy him the one thing he truly desires – respect? Straight-edge ex-junkie Watto finds past mistakes come back to haunt him and threaten not only his own fortune but that of his friends too. While tragic beta-male Ewan is eyeing up spending some of his money on reinventing himself, starting with “an ear-job and nice new pair of chinos.”

Loaded is a about friendship, ambition, gluttony, the peculiarly British distaste for other people’s success, and what happens when you’ve got £11.5m in the bank but the cash machine has a £300 daily limit. It’s about four friends trying to cling onto the slats of their relationship in the eye of a raging hurricane of money and excess.

Jon Brown, writer, says: “I’m very much looking forward to mining the experience of being an instant millionaire in 2016 to find the most difficult, painful, socially uncomfortable experiences imaginable. For this is how it must be to be Loaded—a rollercoaster of pain and mistrust and confusion and guilt and isolation. A rollercoaster with really comfy seats.”

Piers Wenger, Head of Drama at Channel 4, says: “Loaded is a hilarious and prescient comedy drama from one of the funniest young writers around. Exploring what it means to be rich beyond your wildest dreams at a time of life when your friends are almost certainly poor, Loaded is a truthful but comic portrait of a problem most of us can only dream of.”

Loaded is a co-production between Hillbilly Films and Keshet UK and is based on the award-winning Keshet Broadcasting original series ‘Mesudarim’ created by Muli Segev and Assaf Harel.

Filming will begin in 2016. Cast is yet to be announced.