David Farnor | On 20, Jun 2018

BBC Three has ordered another six episodes of YouTube satire Pls Like.

The comedy, which is written by and stars Liam Williams, follows a struggling comedian who must undertake a series of challenges to become the next megastar vlogger and win a £10,000 prize. Along the way, several successful YouTubers give him help and advice.

Season 1 was nominated for a BAFTA in the short-form category.

“A skilful skewering of a new breed of stars whose online fame bleeds into real world entertainment,” is how we described the comedy in our review of Season 1.

Now, after the (even-handed) satirical bloodbath of that first six-episode run, Pls Like returns to discover that the egos of the world’s biggest YouTubers are continuing to grow even more rapidly than the UK’s high-speed internet infrastructure.

Vloggers are selling £50 advent calendars, posting racist videos and filming dead bodies. And if that weren’t enough, algorithms are now failing to stop extremist material reaching a global audience, while also, separately, traumatising children with fake Peppa Pig videos.

Williams will return to once again chart the waters of the new social media age across six more episodes. He will be joined behind the camera by returning director Tom Kingsley, creator Olly Cambridge and Rupert Majendie (producer). In front of the camera, returning cast members include Tim Key, Emma Sidi, Jon Pointing, Hammed Animashaun and Ellie White – and this time, they’ll be joined by Tom Stourton, Tash Demetriou, Arnab Chanda, Shivani Thussu and Grace Hogg Robinson. And some animals.

The second episode was commissioned by Shane Allen, Controller of Comedy Commissioning and Damian Kavanagh, Controller of BBC Three.

“The last few years in BBC Comedy have been a boom time for new talent with multi-award winning shows including Fleabag, This Country, The Young Offenders and People Just Do Nothing,” says Allen. “These are shows that have taken a risk on new talent, which have resulted in comedy from the heart that has a very real sense of place and with characters you grow to care about – who earn those emotional twists and turns.

“In a world where there’s more competition for established talent from an array of competitors we want to broaden and cement our commitment to finding the very best of new wave talent and how we’re going to achieve that is through a comprehensive talent ladder to provide opportunity to an array of emerging voices and performers.

“Today’s announcements signal our expansion of this commitment to championing the very best emerging British comedy talent alongside new comedy pieces that cater for the wide spectrum of tastes of our audiences.”

Season 1 of Pls Like is available to watch in full on BBC Three’s YouTube channel.

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