David Farnor | On 14, Jul 2017

Sam Bain’s Ill Behaviour will premiere on BBC iPlayer this July, before it hits BBC Two.

The latest show from the Peep Show writer boasts an impressive cast that includes Chris Geere, Tom Riley, and Lizzy Caplan.

If follows Joel (Geere), who gets a £2 million settlement when he gets divorced and is reunited with his best friends from sixth form – New Age Charlie (Riley) and IT nerd Tess (Jessica Regan). Charlie, in particular, is a crutch for Joel, and gets him dating again. On his first date he meets an unpredictable doctor, Nadia (Lizzy Caplan). But just as Joel has reconnected with his friends, he discovers that Charlie has been diagnosed with cancer – Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. And he’s horrified to learn that he is refusing chemotherapy.

Joel recruits Tess and Nadia to try and persuade Charlie to change his mind, but to no avail. Refusing to give up, Joel uses his “dirty divorce money” to rent a remote country house and buy black-market chemotherapy drugs. Kidnapping, sedation… all is going to plan – until Charlie tries to escape.

The three-part series was commissioned by Shane Allen, Controller, Comedy Commissioning and Victoria Jaye, Head of TV Content, BBC iPlayer.

Allen says: “Sam has achieved something very special and gripping in placing a huge moral dilemma at the crossroads of friendship, family and loyalty when faced with a devastating cancer diagnosis. Characters have to make difficult ethical choices and engage in questionable deeds for what they believe to be the right reasons – it challenges our own sense of right and wrong in the face of life and death.”

A new show from the writer of Four Lions and Steve Bendelack, the director of The League of Gentlemen? If you can’t wait until Ill Behaviour airs on BBC Two later this year, the good news is you don’t have to: the three-part series will get the BBC iPlayer box set treatment on Saturday 22nd July, with all episodes available to watch online from 10am. It follows the box set release of White Gold, which has been watched over 5 million times and renewed for Season 2, and Season 2 of Peter Kay’s Car Share, which became the BBC’s biggest comedy of 2017, with over 10 million views on iPlayer.

 

Sam Bain’s Ill Behaviour to premiere on BBC iPlayer

17th February 2017

Sam Bain’s new three-part comedy thriller Ill Behaviour will premiere on BBC iPlayer later this year.

The latest show from the Peep Show writer is directed by Steve Bendelack (The League of Gentlemen, Friday Night Dinner) and produced by Gill Isles (Peter Kay’s Car Share, Ideal), with an impressive cast that includes Chris Geere (You’re The Worst, Waterloo Road), Tom Riley (The Collection, Da Vinci’s Demons), and Lizzy Caplan (Masters Of Sex, Mean Girls).

It follows Charlie (Riley), who is diagnosed with cancer but given a favourable prognosis – he’s young and healthy, the cancer has been caught early and it’s a type which responds well to chemotherapy. However, Charlie is suspicious of drugs and modern medical treatments and decides to refuse chemotherapy in favour of an alternative New Age approach.

His oldest friends, Joel (Geere) and Tess (Jessica Regan), fear he’s written his own suicide note, so they decide to hold him hostage and administer chemotherapy themselves with the help of Nadia (Caplan), an unstable, alcoholic oncologist.

The executive producers are Damon Beesley, Iain Morris and Simon Wilson for Fudge Park and Sam Bain, and it is produced in conjunction with BBC Worldwide. It was commissioned by Shane Allen, Controller, Comedy Commissioning and Victoria Jaye, Head of TV Content, BBC iPlayer

Allen says: “Sam has achieved something very special and gripping in placing a huge moral dilemma at the crossroads of friendship, family and loyalty when faced with a devastating cancer diagnosis. Characters have to make difficult ethical choices and engage in questionable deeds for what they believe to be the right reasons – it challenges our own sense of right and wrong in the face of life and death.”

The show will be broadcast on BBC Two, but will premiere online first, part of BBC iPlayer’s ongoing push to release more shows as box sets for binge-watching.

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