US scribe writing Sky Atlantic comedy

US writer and performer David Cross is penning a comedy starring Stephen Mangan and Heather Graham for the Sky Atlantic pay TV channel in the UK.

Bliss will follow Mangan (Episodes) as a travel writer, who leads a double life with families on both sides of the English city of Bristol. Graham (Boogie Nights, The Hangover I & III) and Jo Hartley (This is England) play the wives.

Writer Cross is best known for work on US series Arrested Development and The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.

His prodco, Liberal Jew-Run Media Productions is one of three producers attached, the others being UK-based Merman (Catastrophe, Divorce) and Kenton Allen’s Big Talk Productions (Spaced, Raised By Wolves).

Bliss will sit alongside original comedies such as Sick Note and The Trip to Spain on the Sky Atlantic slate.

“Bliss is going to be unmissable. It is the latest evidence of Sky Atlantic’s amazing output, which in terms of talent, scale and storytelling further establish the channel as a world leader not just in drama but in comedy too,” said pay TV provider Sky’s head of comedy, Jon Mountague.

Sky Atlantic is distributed in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy.