Former Bake Off duo Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc are to star in their first sitcom – as two best friends who happen to be inept killers.


They will play Fran and Jamie in Sky One’s six-part comedy Hitmen - two best friends who have stumbled into a career in contract killing.

Working out of their scruffy van, each episode follows the hapless duo as they try to carry out their latest hit, only to be derailed by "incompetence, bickering, and inane antics" according to the broadcaster.


Giedroyc’s Jamie is described as an “affable goof… content to spend her days hanging out with her best mate". Perkins’ “super sensitive” Fran meanwhile “starts to question whether it’s really the life she wants”.

Executive producer Myfanwy Moore said: “We are so excited to be working with the truly fantastic female comedy partnership that is Mel and Sue, who can brandish bullets and banter brilliantly in equal measure.”

Written by Joe Parham and Joe Markham with some script input from Mel and Sue, Hitmen will premiere on Sky One in 2019.

The comedy joins a raft of new announcements from Sky including The Queen and I, starring David Walliams and based on Sue Townsend’s book about the Royal Family living on a council estate following the establishment of a Republic. Samantha Bond will play the Queen with Walliams playing the Prime Minister who has duped the nation into getting rid of the Royals.

Sky is also making a range of seven comedy shorts with a cast including Alex Brooker, Lee Ridley (aka Lost Voice Guy), Jonny Pelham, Kris Marshall, Samson Kayo, Susan Wokoma, and Sindhu Vee.

The broadcaster has also announced that is making another series of Idris Elba Comedy In the Long Run.

Speaking about the new commissions Sky’s head of comedy Jon Mountague said he was excited about the new line up and said Hitmen would “capture the chemistry of Mel and Sue and their playfulness in a scripted comedy world.”

He added that The Queen and I would offer an “interesting alternative” to Netflix saga The Crown which is expected to air its third series around the same time.


“David Walliams’ Republican Prime Minister in The Queen and I will have a faint shadow of Jeremy Corbyn, but maybe that’s my interpretation,” Mountague added with a laugh.