The BBC has commissioned a controversial comedy about assisted suicide called “Way To Go” which is due to air next year.
The plot involves a group of friends who set-up an assisted suicide business to help a terminally ill neighbour, and to pay off gambling debts.
Paul Jones writing for the Radio Times said that BBC Three is “clearly of the opinion that we should laugh in the face of death” and assisted suicide “may be an unlikely subject for comedy”.
Controversy
And UK comedy guide Chortle said that Blake Harrison, one of the actors starring in the show, is “set to court controversy” by appearing in it.
The series of six episodes has been created by US TV writer Bob Kushell.
BBC Three controller Zai Bennett called his scripts “dark, poignant, absurd, moving and brilliant”.
Filmed
The show will be filmed on location at Pinewood studios, and is set to be aired in 2013.
The BBC caused outrage last year, when it showed a documentary of a motor-neurone sufferer being helped to die at a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.
Dr Peter Saunders, director of the Care Not Killing group, accused the BBC of “cheerleading” for legalising assisted suicide.
And Bishop Michael Nazir Ali said the broadcaster was siding with lobbyists campaigning for a change in the law.