Aisling Bea’s American TV show has been picked up for a series.

NBC has ordered a full run of I Feel Bad, based on the book of the same name by Orli Auslander, following a pilot

The bestseller uses ‘dark humour and brutal honesty’ to talk about a woman trying to be the best wife, mother, and friend she can be, ‘while simultaneously feeling shitty about virtually everything she does’.

Bea’s role is Simone, the main character’s childhood friend who is described as the ‘encourager of all bad ideas’ and a series regular.

The lead character, Emet, is played by Indian-American actress Sarayu Blue, and the comedy also stars James Buckley from The Inbetweeners.

Buckley will play Chewy, Emet’s colleague at a video game company and an expert on gaming. It is perfect casting for Buckley, who has his own gaming YouTube channel, Completed It Mate, which has more than 330,000 subscribers.

Aseem Batra, who has produced Scrubs, The Cleveland Show, and Uncle Buck, is writing the series, and is one of the executive producers alongside Parks and Recreation star Amy Poehler.

The blurb for the show says of Emet: 'She feels bad when she has a sexy dream about someone other than her husband, or when she pretends not to know her kids when they misbehave in public, or when she uses her staff to help solve personal problems. But that’s OK, right? Nobody can have it all and do it perfectly.'

As well as her comedy work, Bea has had straight roles in BBC crime thrillers The Fall and Hard Sun, available on Netflix and Hulu respectively in the States.

Published: 9 May 2018