Bafta award-winning comedy Amandaland has been renewed for a third series, the BBC has announced.
The show, which stars Lucy Punch, Dame Joanna Lumley and Philippa Dunne, was awarded the Bafta for best scripted comedy at Sunday’s ceremony, and will return for a new six-part run.
Director of BBC Comedy, Jon Petrie, made the announcement at the BBC Comedy Festival in Liverpool on Wednesday, where he revealed that Black Ops will also return for a third series.
The comedy stars Gbemisola Ikumelo and Saturday Night Live UK’s Hammed Animashaun as two undercover cops, and has also led to a string of awards including a Bafta for Ikumelo for best female comedy performance.
As well as returning series, Petrie announced new shows including Hopley Hall, which will follow the staff and volunteers at a country house in Northern Ireland and stars Derry Girls’ Jamie-Lee O’Donnell.
Meanwhile Opening Up is set and filmed in and around Manchester, and will feature Amy Gledhill in the lead role.
A new documentary, Twenty Years Of Not Going Out, will celebrate 20 years of Not Going Out, the hit sitcom created by and starring Lee Mack.
Other shows to have new series commissioned include Am I Being Unreasonable? written by and starring Daisy May Cooper and Selin Hizli.
The pair said they were “excited (and slightly concerned) to return to the mad world of Am I Being Unreasonable?”.
“The first two series have been an absolute joy to make and we couldn’t be more grateful to be back for a third time with our incredible cast and crew,” they added.
“There’s a lot to say in this series – some of which we probably shouldn’t – but we’re hoping to end on a high. Even if some of our characters might not.”
Things You Should Have Done, Such Brave Girls, Mammoth and Two Doors Down will also return for new series.
Amandaland has become one of the BBC’s biggest comedy series in recent years, and stars Punch as glamourous divorcee Amanda.
Seb Barwell, BBC Comedy commissioning editor said: “Amanda and friends continue to capture the hearts of the nation, so we’re delighted to announce a third series and to keep up our ‘co-lab’ with this amazing team.”
In a speech at the Comedy Festival, Petrie hailed the comedy and acting talent that has come out of Liverpool, from Ken Dodd to John Bishop, to the “original Liver Bird and all-round comedy legend Alison Steadman”.
Describing comedy as “part of our survival mechanism,” he said the medium is “what people turn to again and again. It is what we quote, what we rewatch, what brings us together”.
Referring to incoming BBC director-general Matt Brittin, Petrie joked that he intends to camp outside his office, “to meet him and make sure he understands just how vital it is that the BBC keeps backing comedy, so that this brilliant genre can not only survive, but thrive.”
