Lisa McGee jokes about a Derry character featuring in new series ‘How to Get to Heaven From Belfast’

“There is a character from Derry in it before I get banned from the old hometown,” joked the ‘Derry Girls’ creator.

The new series has been commissioned by Channel 4, and will be produced by Hat Trick Productions, the company behind Ms. McGee’s worldwide-hit sitcom ‘Derry Girls’.

The series follows Saoirse, Robyn and Dara, all in their late 30s.

Saoirse is a ‘successful writer with a compulsion to hit the self-destruct button’, Robyn a ‘sweary, stressed out mother of three young boys’ and Dara a ‘full-time carer of an elderly parent, who hasn’t managed to move out of her teenage bedroom’.

According to a series description: “When the women each receive an email informing them of the death of Greta, an old classmate they were once very close with, there’s clearly some unspoken, unfinished business.

"The friends decide to attend Greta’s wake and discover all may not be quite as it seems. They soon find themselves embroiled in a dark and twisted mystery. It’s absolutely terrifying. But it’s also… utterly thrilling.”

The new show was commissioned by Channel 4 head of comedy Charlie Perkins.

She said: “This is huge. We couldn’t be prouder that Channel 4 feels like this extraordinary show’s spiritual home.”

The show marks a continuation of the extraordinary Derry connection with Channel 4 comedy.

Two decades prior to the global success of ‘Derry Girls’, it was Derry man Seamus Cassidy who commissioned ‘Father Ted’ for the broadcaster.

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