A sitcom about a Mancunian family and the puritanical Christian sect they are devoted to is being aired on Channel 4.
Everyone Else Burns is a coming-of-age comedy which follows a family and their lives as part of the hyper-religious Order of the Divine Rod, an evangelical community located in Manchester.
Simon Bird, star of the The Inbetweeners and Friday Night Dinner, plays David the head of the family.
Everyone Else Burns has set All 4 viewers on fire, becoming the platform’s biggest comedy launch episode since Derry Girls in 2018 and the most viewed new All 4 comedy boxset in its first week 🔥 pic.twitter.com/IVX6zncQal
— Channel 4 Press (@C4Press) January 31, 2023
Two Manchester pop choirs, Chorlton Sings and Alty Voices, will star in episode six of the series.
The TV cameo is exciting for the singers of both groups who formed in the summer of 2021 as lockdown restrictions began to ease.
Michael Chambers, a choir member from Ancoats, said: “It was a surreal and exciting experience.
“Being on a big production like this as a local community choir was quite scary but fun – and we had a blast filming and hanging around on set!”
Viant Siddique, a choir member from Didsbury, said: “It was such a great opportunity for the choir to be part of! Seeing the creative process and being around such a talented bunch was inspiring.”
Rose de la Font, the director of both choirs from Timperley, said: “It’s been so exciting to be able to bring our choirs to a new series and get lock talent on national TV!
“We had a great time rehearsing, performing and working with the production teams, and we can’t wait for everyone to watch the series.”
In the comedy series, dad David tries to ascend the church ranks to become an Elder, while his wife Fiona, struggles to maintain her strict moral compass.
Their daughter Rachel wants to go to university but the family can’t be sure she will survive if allowed into such a new environment, while their 12-year-old son Aaron is stuck getting bullied.
Full of chaos and comedy, viewers have been quick to notice some familiar background locations in the show, and have been asking where the series was filmed.
Everyone Else Burns was filmed in Manchester, although some scenes were filmed in the town of Northwich, Cheshire.
A cast member shared images on social media taking place outside The Beetham Tower, an iconic 47-storey storey skyscraper in the city centre.
In Northwich, film crews were spotted in the town centre, and at The Plaza. The Plaza is a Grade 2 listed art deco building in the town.
Mapletoft and his co-writer Oliver Taylor were able to elaborate on the strict rules that members of the fictional Order need to abide by which included an obsession with “preaching time” and a strict ban on coffee.
Taylor said: “We have a number in our head of how many milligrams of caffeine you can consume before your soul is forfeit. And that’s just for us. We’ll know that other people don’t need to know that.
“We’ve definitely got lots of rules and prescriptions and different maxims that they might have.
“I think we certainly went deep enough to create a layer of tension, because we think that everything’s funnier if you’re worried that your family might be obliterated by divine fire.”
The fictional family are waiting for the apocalypse, however it turns out, it was just a test run concocted by David.
Actor Simon Bird said: “It’s an absolute gift for an actor when you get scripts as amazing as these scripts are. They’re like Rolls Royces full of amazing jokes.
“It feels like a world or pocket of the UK that you haven’t seen on TV before.
“He’s a proper old school patriarch, but for me, it feels like there’s real warmth there as well.
“He obviously loves his family. But he’s sort of dealing with some stuff. He’s dealing with his own toxic masculinity.”
This is the pair’s first scriptwriting venture together and Everyone Else Burns is their first production.
Everyone Else Burns is available to watch now on Channel 4.
