Olivia Colman and The Mighty Boosh's Julian Barratt will play dysfunctional couple in comedy pilot

The 40-year-old has been cast in a new Channel 4 comedy called Flowers, which is about "an eccentric family struggling to hold themselves together."

Colman will play music teacher Deborah in the pilot, opposite The Mighty Boosh star Julian Barrett, who'll play her husband and children's author Maurice.

Maurice and Deborah – who are described as "barely together but yet to divorce" – live with Maurice's mother and their 25-year-old twins Amy and Donald in "a creaky, messy, crumbling old house."

"It is really dark, funny and challenging – everything a Channel 4 family sitcom should be," the channel's head of comedy, Phil Clarke, told The Guardian. "It’s possibly the most dysfunctional family you will ever come across and yet somehow they still manage to function as a family. The humour is very dark but at times it’s really broad as well. It’s a very original piece – I don’t think there’s anything like it anywhere else."

Flowers has been written by Black Pond scribe Will Sharpe and is being produced by Kudos, the production company behind Broadchuch.