Comedy Central releases its first online-only sitcom

Comedy Central UK has released its first online-only sitcom – a five part series set in the confines of a Northern secondary school.

Staff Room – which stars Ryan McDermott, former Coronation Street villain Brian Capron, Hollyoaks actress Zoe Lister, Tina Malone (Shameless), Alice Barlow (Benidorm), Archie Kelly (Phoenix Nights) and 80’s DJ Pat Sharp (Fun House) – follows life outside of the classroom for a dysfunctional set of staff.

The five-part sitcom went live on comedycentral.co.uk this morning and tells the story of best friends Ian (McDermott) and Julian (Adam Brown), two secondary school teachers who are breaking every rule in the textbook when it comes to skipping classes, arriving hungover and talking about anything but the school syllabus.

It’s up to their colleague and Ian’s love interest, Lucy Lucas (Lister), to cover up their failings from Principal Kipling (Capron), their by-the-book boss and arch nemesis.

Staff Room was written and produced by McDermott and Brown, and financed by Wildseed Comedy, who invested in Staff Room after its pilot episode got over 30,000 hits on YouTube.

Talking about the launch Sam Delaney, Editor in Chief at comedycentral.co.uk said: “This is the first time we’ve put a sitcom on comedycentral.co.uk – we’re doing so because Staff Room is original, very funny, brilliantly written, stupendously performed and, in terms of production values, ten times more polished than the usual stuff we put on the site.

“Ryan and Adam are major talents who I’m assuming will soon be so successful that they will never talk to me ever again.”

You can watch all five episodes of Staff Room on staffroomseries.com and on comedycentral.co.uk.