It’s always a good policy to wait until you’ve experienced a thing before you decide whether it was a good idea or not. Even if that thing is jumping off a tall building onto a bed of nails, you can’t truly be 100% sure that there aren’t some unexpected benefits that may even override the hideous pain and injury.

Note: in the case of jumping off a tall building onto a bed of nails, there almost definitely aren’t unexpected benefits of this kind. Don’t try it.

So, while on paper it might look like a curious idea to make a British version of Everybody Loves Raymond, starring Catherine Tate and Lee Mack, you never know, it could end up becoming a kind of UK equivalent of the American version of the British The Office.

The series will be called The Smiths, and it’ll be set in Cheshire. Lee, who wrote the script, plays a newspaper sports columnist, and Catherine is his wife. They live across the street from his interfering parents, who still play host to his older brother. Shenanigans will ensue.

At the moment, things are at the pilot stage, with Catherine and Lee shooting in front of a live studio audience on May 28 (according to BBC News).

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