Sue Perkins

Sue Perkins

Openly gay TV presenter/comedian Sue Perkins is scripting and taking the lead role in a new comedy ‘Heading Out’.
According to the BBC, the show is about a vet who is afraid to tell her parents that she’s a lesbian. Perkins has been commissioned to write the show for transmission on BBC2, after submitting a couple of pilot episodes earlier this year.

In June, she told Broadcast magazine that although at first the main character was not written with herself in mind, Perkins had eventually been selected as the best person to play the role. She said: “I hadn’t intended to be in it but I kept being told ‘that’s you’ which wasn’t what I wanted to hear as I saw it as an annoying, cretinous character”.

Veteran comedian Dawn French will star opposite Perkins, along with Jo Scanian (‘The Thick of It’) and Nicola Walker (‘Spooks’).
The six-part series began production in September and is due to be broadcast next year. The BBC has revealed the following about the new show: “Perkins will play Sara, a skilled veterinarian whose friends insist she tell her parents about her sexual orientation. To help her achieve this, her friends buy her a series of sessions with an eccentric lifestyle coach. ”Perkins has described the project as being “a joy to work on”.

Story by Chris McMurray