Menier Chocolate Factory to Premiere New David Baddiel Play MY FAMILY: NOT THE SITCOM

Following a critically acclaimed run of FAME: Not The Musical in 2014, the Menier Chocolate Factory today announces the world première of David Baddiel's new show My Family: Not The Sitcom. The production opens on 17 May, with previews from 10 May, and runs until 25 June, following Funny Girl which completes its run at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 5 March and the UK première of Florian Zeller's The Truth from 10 March to 7 May.

When family members die, or are lost to dementia, all we tend to say about them is that they were wonderful. But if that is all you can say about them, you may as well say nothing: to truly remember our loved ones, you have to call up their weirdnesses, their madnesses, their flaws. Because the dead, despite what we may think, are not angels.

My Family: Not The Sitcom is a massively disrespectful celebration of the lives of David Baddiel's late mother, Sarah, and dementia-ridden father, Colin. It's a show about memory, aging, infidelity, what we can and can't say in an over-policed moral culture, and gay cats.

David Baddiel returns to the Menier Chocolate Factory following his critically acclaimed show FAME: Not The Musical which discussed his strange relationship with celebrity and what it is like to live a life in (and out of) fame. His other theatre work includes the stage adaptation of his hit indie film The Infidel which ran at Theatre Royal Stratford East in autumn 2014.

Baddiel was first known as one of the stars of The Mary Whitehouse Experience and then Newman and Baddiel In Pieces - both for BBC Two. In 1992, with Rob Newman, he performed to 12,500 people in the UK's first ever arena comedy show. In 1994 Baddiel and Frank Skinner created Fantasy Football League , and they, along with The Lightening Seeds, wrote the iconic unofficial England anthem 'Three Lions', which has been number one three times and is still heard at games around the world. In 2000 Baddiel and Skinner created the hit ITV show Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned, going out live and unscripted for over 60 episodes. They joined up together again in 2006 and 2010 to record one of the first hit podcasts, Baddiel and Skinner's World Cup Podcasts, live from Germany and South Africa. The show was downloaded over a million times and was one of the first podcasts to be nominated for a Sony Award.

In 2010, he made his directorial debut with The Norris McWhirter Chronicles - a film for Sky 1, which he also wrote. For radio, he created Heresey, Don't Make Me Laugh and David Baddiel Tries to Understand - all for BBC Radio 4. He can currently be seen presenting a four-part documentary David Baddiel on the Silk Road to Discovery.

Away from the screen he has published six books to date: Time for Bed, Whatever Love Means, The Secret Purposes, The Death of Eli Gold and two novels for children The Parent Agency and The Person Controller. He also has a new book being published for World Book Day called The Boy Who Could Do What He Liked.

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