Airdate: The Wrong Mans

I can highly recommend The Wrong Mans, a dark UK comedy coming to ABC1 next month, devised and performed by Mathew Baynton and James Corden (Gavin and Stacey).

The title is designed to discern it from being mistaken as a drama.

While walking to work, a car crashes before Sam Pinkett (Mathew Baynton) eyes. After the police and ambulance have left, Sam finds a mobile phone ringing on the ground. He answers it, a man says “if you don’t come at 5 o’clock we will kill your wife”.

Sam is stunned. When he gets into work at the planning office of Berkshire County Council, he is late for a meeting hosted by his ex-girlfriend and boss, Lizzie, but he manages to leave a message for the police. Meanwhile the mobile phone does not stop ringing. In the toilet, Sam listens to another terrifying message from the kidnapper, who is clearly torturing the woman. Too big to keep to himself, he reveals all to Phil the postman (James Corden).

Phil persuades Sam not to involve the police and the pair set off for the hospital to return the phone to Mr Stevens, the driver of the car that crashed. After seeing what state Stevens is in, Sam promises that he will do whatever he can to save his wife. However, the man reveals he is not actually Mr Stevens and the phone does not belong to him. But someone is watching them, on their way out of the hospital, Phil and Sam are jumped by unknown assailants, who put hoods over their heads and bundle them into the back of a van.

10pm Wednesday March 12 ABC1.