Channel 4 green lights Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee's new series

Belfast women are set to take the place of Derry Girls in Lisa McGee's new series for Channel 4.

The broadcaster has commissioned a new eight-part TV series from McGee, who created Derry Girls.

The comedy-thriller How To Get To Heaven From Belfast is to be made by Hat Trick Productions.

According to Channel 4 publicity, the series will follow three women from Belfast who meet up at the wake of an old friend.

In a statement, McGee said she had wanted to make a comedy-thriller set in Northern Ireland "for a long time".

Derry Girls, which first aired on Channel 4 in 2018, followed four teenage girls and "a wee English fella" growing up in the city during the 1990s.

It was hugely successful, winning a number of awards, and ran for three seasons before finishing in 2022.

The blackboard used in a famous scene from series two subsequently became the centrepiece of an exhibition about stereotypes at the Ulster Museum in Belfast.

Meanwhile, the Derry Girls Experience is currently running at the Tower Museum.

The series was partly based on McGee's schooldays at Thornhill College in Derry in the 1990s.

She then went on to study drama at Queen's University, Belfast and, according to Channel 4, it is in Belfast where her new series begins.

The broadcaster has released some details of the plot for How To Get To Heaven From Belfast.

It will follow three women called Saoirse, Robyn and Dara who have been friends since school but are now in their late 30s.

They meet again at the wake of Greta, an old school friend, and soon "find themselves embroiled in a dark and twisted mystery".

"These women are about to embark on the most exciting adventure of their lives," Channel 4 said.

"An adventure that will take them from their native Belfast, a city full of ghosts, the pain of the past plastered on every mural, to the mythic wildness of rural Donegal and right across Ireland, as they attempt to put the pieces of the puzzle together and uncover the truth."

McGee added that she "cannot wait to share these flawed funny women with everyone".

Each episode is set to be an hour long, but Channel 4 has not yet said when it expects to screen the eight-part series or who will be cast in the lead roles.

Like Derry Girls, How To Get To Heaven From Belfast will be produced by Hat Trick Productions.

One of the UK's leading independent production companies, it has also been behind programmes like Father Ted, Fonejacker, Drop the Dead Donkey, Bodies and Have I Got News For You?