UK-based pay-TV operator Sky is adapting David Walliams’ children’s novel Ratburger into a series for its Sky1 channel.

The show will bow this Christmas, when it will also extend to the Sky Go platform.

The story follows a young girl named Zoe, who befriends a baby rat she finds in her room. But her stepmother and a shifty burger man (who will be played by the author) want to mince the rodent and sell it in the form of burgers.

Sheridan Smith (Gavin & Stacey), Mark Benton (The Halcyon, Waterloo Road), Nigel Planer (The Young Ones) and Ben Bailey smith (Law and Order: UK) will star in the show, commissioned by Jon Mountague (Sky’s head of comedy), written by Kevin Cecil (Gnomeo and Juliet) and Walliams, and directed by Matt Lipsey (Little Britain).

Ratburger is produced by Jo Sargent and Joanna Hanley for King Bert Productions, the prodco behind new Disney EMEA vlog-style series So Sammy.