Dawn French Is James Corden’s Mum…

Dawn French and James Corden (AP Images)

…in a new BBC comedy written by James and his Gavin & Stacey co-star Mathew Baynton (he played the magically stupid Deano, as seen in this clip here).

The Wrong Mans, which hits British screens later this year, is the story of two men, Phil (James) and Sam (Mathew), who find a ringing phone in the middle of a car crash, and, like doofuses, answer it. This, rather than resulting in the return of the phone to its rightful owner and a pat of the back for the pair, then sets off a chain of life-threatening events.

Dawn French stars as Phil’s canny mum Linda, with Rebecca Front (recently seen flustering her way through The Thick Of It), as the head of MI5. Yup, things get THAT bad.

There are also appearances from Merlin’s Emilia Fox, Benedict Wong (Prometheus) and Nick Moran (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels)

Executive producer Mark Freeland says the idea is to make a funny thriller, for TV: “We are trying to do a comedy with explosions, a lot of running about, murder, extortion, friendship and love.”

Sounds busy, if nothing else.