News brief: BBC One prays for Monks pilot

UK broadcaster BBC One is piloting a studio comedy based on a group of monks.

In the show, named Monks, emerging television comedian Seann Walsh (Big Bad World) will play a man that decides to join a religious order to save himself from prison afters years of defrauding Britain’s benefits system. He joins a down-on-its-luck monastery, where he tries to change his life.

A pilot is filming on January 31 at the BBC Elstree Studios, with an in-house BBC comedy unit producing. BBC One is billing it is as “brilliantly big, funny and warm-hearted”.