LEADING television comedians and writers such as Matt Lucas and David Walliams are being encouraged to turn their talents to feature films.

BBC Films wants to balance its range of hard-hitting dramas — from Rwanda’s genocide to young offenders in the East End of London — with stories that just make people laugh.

Wooing comedians is easier said than done, however. Those with successful television careers are regularly touring on the comedy circuit and raking in fortunes from DVD sales. Some also recognise that their material may not translate easily into a feature film.

Ricky Gervais, who created the hit BBC comedy series The Office, has already turned down the idea of making The Office — The Movie.

David Thompson, head of BBC Films, said at the Cannes Film Festival: “We’re really trying to up the ante on comic films. The bulk of films made are dramas, but the films that audiences want to see are not dramas at all.” He described Lucas and Walliams — who created and star in Little Britain — as brilliantly inventive comedians. “We’ve tried to get them. They’re thinking about it.”

Ben Elton, Steve Coogan and Ali G have already made the transition from television to the cinema.

Richard Curtis, the writer of Notting Hill, began life with the BBC with Blackadder and Not the Nine O’Clock News, while Woody Allen started his career writing gags for Bob Hope. BBC Films has backed Allen’s latest film, Match Point, and is collaborating on a second one.

Comedies in the pipeline include Confetti, a story about a competition for a couple to hold the most outlandish wedding. “It’s a very funny film,” Mr Thompson said. Among the dramas which BBC Films is promoting in Cannes is an historical epic, The Other Boleyn Girl, which has yet to be cast.

Based on a book by Philippa Gregory, it follows the story of two sisters, Anne and Mary Boleyn, both of whom had passionate affairs with Henry VIII, although only one ended up losing her head.

Other dramas include God Forgives, a romance about an Amish boy torn between his community and the outside world, and Shooting Dogs, about the Rwanda genocide.

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