Channel 4 announces three star-studded comedy pilots

Channel 4 has commissioned three new comedy pilot commissions for 2014, as well as confirming the return of several long-running shows.

Sheridan Smith has already begun filming Flack, in which she stars as a PR executive, struggling to balance her own life, while trying to solve the outrageous problems of her celebrity clients.

Catastrophe has been co-written by Twitter comedian Rob Delaney and Pulling's Sharon Horgan, who will both star as an American man and an Irish woman who embark on a relationship in London and 'make a b****y mess' along the way.

David Baddiel is to write and direct Sit.com - a traditional family sitcom with the added twist of looking at the infiltration of technology into people's everyday lives.

Channel 4's head of comedy Phil Clarke said: "The latest batch of pilots spring from a set of witty, clever, knowing scripts that reflect the complexity of modern life.

"Flack deals with the world of work; Sit.com, family; and Catastrophe maintaining a relationship. They represent a strand of comedy that I would like to expand on the channel."

The channel also confirmed the return of The Midnight Beast, Friday Night Dinner, Derek, Cardinal Burns, The Mimic, Man Down, Toast Of London and Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy for new series next year.

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.