“Harry Potter” star Rupert Grint, “Shaun of the Dead’s” Nick Frost and “Miami Vice’s” Don Johnson will star in comedy “Sick Note,” which has been greenlit by European pay TV operator Sky. The show looks at how desperate a person’s actions can become when a lie starts to spiral out of control.
The series is produced by British production company King Bert, which was founded by producer Jo Sargent (“Absolutely Fabulous,” “Miranda”) and writer-performers David Walliams and Miranda Hart. It is created and written by Nat Saunders and James Serafinowicz. The series, which is set to air on premium pay channel Sky Atlantic early next year, will be directed by Matt Lipsey, who won a BAFTA for “Little Britain.”
“Sick Note” is the story of Daniel Glass (Grint), a compulsive liar, who’s stuck in a failing relationship and a dead-end job, where he is under the thumb of his irrepressible boss Kenny West (Johnson). And just when things couldn’t get any worse, he’s diagnosed with esophageal cancer. However, everyone starts to treat him better because of his diagnosis and suddenly Daniel finds he has a new lust for life.
But then he finds out he was misdiagnosed by the most incompetent oncologist on Earth, Dr. Ian Glennis (Frost) and that’s when Daniel has a big decision to make: come clean and go back to his old rubbish life, or keep this new information a secret and pretend to be ill. He decides to go for the latter but very quickly the lie spirals out of control and both Daniel and Dr. Glennis have to spend all of their waking lives trying to prevent the truth from getting out.
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“Sick Note” was commissioned by Jon Mountague, Sky’s head of comedy. The series is executive produced by Sargent and produced by Sarah Fraser (“Walliams & Friend”).
International distribution for the series will be handled by Sky Vision. Principal photography is now underway.