BABY COW SIGNS UP MAISAH THOMPSON AS DEVELOPMENT PRODUCER
Baby Cow Productions today announces it has bolstered its scripted comedy team with the arrival of Maisah Thompson as its new development producer.
Reporting to Rupert Majendie, Head of Comedy Development, Maisah will help grow the company’s scripted comedy slate and will be instrumental in the development of new comedy ideas. As part of her role, Maisah will also look to expand the company’s network of comedy talent with a particular focus on working with the next generation of diverse and exciting female talent.
Maisah brings solid experience in development, idea generation, leadership of writers’ rooms and script editing to her new role. She joins Baby Cow from Objective Fiction, where she was most recently a junior producer for scripted comedy development, and responsible for a slate skewed towards young viewers (16-34). She also worked as an assistant producer on Arthur Mathews’ Road to Brexit.
Before this Maisah kicked off her career at FremantleMediaUK working on popular shows such as QI and Celebrity Juice. She later went on to Retort to work on the Channel 4 Blaps series, Lowdown, before moving over to the indie’s development team as a junior researcher. After spending time in development and production roles at BBC Studios on Upstart Crow and at Hitchhiker TV, Maisah became Channel 4 Comedy's in-house script reader.
Rupert Majendie, Head of Comedy Development, Baby Cow, said: “I’m so excited to have Maisah join our comedy team. Her inspiring love, understanding and knowledge of comedy makes her the perfect person to help us build on Baby Cow’s comedy history.”
Maisah Thompson, said: “I am truly thrilled to be joining the brilliant Baby Cow team. I’m looking forward to developing plenty of laugh out loud projects with a whole host of new and exciting talent.”
Steve Coogan, Creative Director and Co-founder, Baby Cow, added: “If you’re part of Baby Cow, you want to trample boundaries and you’ve got something to say. Maisah will help us grow Comedy at Baby Cow through her hunger to champion hidden talent, crafting stories full of truth and humour in new and different ways.”
LOCKDOWN SEX LIVES: WRITERS SEEK ANONYMOUS FEMALE STORIES
Three writers are asking women to speak up about their experiences of the most intimate part of quarantine in modern Britain: their sex lives.
These stories, with details of the good, the bad, the funny, and the sad aspects of sex in a time of social distancing, submitted anonymously via the website www.sex-lives.co.uk, will be made into a new online mini-series and shared on Instagram later in the summer at www.instagram.com/sex_lives/.
They will be written by Joanna Scanlan, who is known for her roles in No Offence and The Thick of It, Alex Roach, who also starred in No Offence and The Iron Lady and theatre director and writer Jenny Duffy.
The series will be based on contributions from anyone identifying as female, and each episode will be 3 minutes long.
It is inspired by a 2016 book of interviews by Wendy Jones, ‘The Sex Lives of English Women’ which took an in-depth look at modern British female sexuality, with the author concluding that “every woman has a unique story to tell about her sexuality… and through our sexuality
our humanity is revealed.”
Joanna Scanlan said: “Usually sex brings us together. Today, under lockdown as women, we can still be connected. We can find the joy, the delight and the connection we crave. Let's heal from toxic shame, have a laugh and use our imaginations, telling sweet spot stories, whilst remaining two meters apart.”
Alex Roach said: “In a time where we are all craving connection, we are reaching out to women to write this story with us. We want to celebrate female sexuality in all its many amazing forms. This series will be an honest, sex positive and funny reflection of how women are… right now.”
The series will star Scanlan and Roach, with others to be confirmed. The series will be produced by Scanlan. Be part of the story: www.sex-lives.co.uk.
This is a George & George Co/Baby Cow production. George & George Co is a production company set up by Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine in 2018 and is affiliated to Baby Cow Productions through BBC Studios.
Biographies of the writers:
Joanna Scanlan is an actress, writer and producer best known for No Offence, Getting On, The Thick Of It. Other credits include Puppy Love, Pin Cushion And The Invisible Woman.
Alex Roach is an actress and writer best known for No Offence, Utopia, The Iron Lady. Other credits include Black Mirror, Inside Number 9, and Killing Eve.
Jenny Duffy is a theatre maker and writer. She is co-director of theatre company MASSIVE OWL who have made and toured work nationally and internationally. Together Alex and Jenny founded YES MATE, a company committed to telling character-led stories that challenge stereotypes and champion women.
BABY COW PRODUCTIONS APPOINT RUPERT MAJENDIE AS HEAD OF COMEDY DEVELOPMENT
Multi award-winning production company Baby Cow Productions have appointed Rupert Majendie as Head of Comedy Development.
Majendie is an experienced producer of TV, film, online and live comedy, who produced BAFTA nominated BBC series Pls Like (series 1 and 2) starring Liam Williams and Tim Key, Nick Helm's Heavy Entertainment for BBC Three and, most recently, the new Tom Davis and James de Frond BBC One sitcom King Gary. For film, he is currently in production with Film4 and the BFI on funded feature Brian and Charles, written by David Earl and Chris Hayward.
Alongside his impressive television credits, Majendie also created online comedy platform mr box (www.mrbox.tv), originating ideas that have gone on to be adapted for other mediums including Romesh Ranganathan’s Hip Hop Saved My Life and Earl and Hayward’s Brian and Charles.
Majendie brings Pls Like with him to Baby Cow Productions and will executive produce a third series of the award-nominated series for the company.
Rupert Majendie said: "I am delighted to be starting at Baby Cow with Steve, Christine, Sarah and the rest of the team. As a long-time fan of the company’s work, I’m very grateful for them putting their faith in me to be a part of its further development. I cannot wait to welcome even more new and established talent to the slate and contribute to their rich heritage of ground-breaking comedy."
Christine Langan, Baby Cow Productions CEO, said: “His rich experience and inspiring passion for comedy, make Rupert the ideal person to build on Baby Cow’s comedy heritage. We look forward to pushing into exciting new territory with Rupert on board.”
Steve Coogan, Baby Cow Creative Director, said: “Rupert is at the vanguard of the emergent generation of comedy writers and performers. He has intuitive good taste. He can create and guide the kind of comedy that has substance as well as funniness. Is respected by performers and commissioners alike. He is the perfect person to head our Baby Cow comedy team blah blah blah. Look he’s really good, ok. We wanted him and we’ve got him.”
Sarah Monteith was recently announced as Baby Cow Production’s first-ever Managing Director.
KEYWORKER - COMEDY ABOUT A DISILLUSIONED TWENTY-SOMETHING VOLUNTEERING IN A FOODBANK DURING THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS
Baby Cow has self-funded a comedy about a disillusioned twenty-something volunteering in a foodbank during the coronavirus crisis.
Key Worker (4 x 10) has been written and self-shot by Pls Like and Plebs star Jon Pointing, who also worked with Baby Cow on BBC3 Threesome short Hunter.
The first three episodes are available on the Mr Box YouTube channel now, with the fourth set to be dropped on Tuesday.
Pointing stars as ‘Bradley from Bromley’, a twentysomething lifted from his adult inertia when he decides to volunteer in a local foodbank as the lockdown takes hold.
Pointing was inspired to shoot the comedy on his own volunteering experiences with his partner Sarah following the Conservatives’ general election victory at the back-end of last year.
BBC Studios-backed Baby Cow creative director Steve Coogan described the comedy as “warm, funny and beautifully observed”.
“In Bradley, Jon Pointing has created an unlikely hero for these strange times,” Coogan added.
The four-parter is produced by Joe Fraser and Rupert Majendie for Baby Cow.
SARAH MONTEITH APPOINTED MD,BABY COW PRODUCTIONS
Baby Cow Productions today announces the appointment of Sarah Monteith as Managing Director. In this newly created role, Sarah will work alongside CEO Christine Langan. She takes up the new position in mid-May.
Baby Cow Productions has a superb pedigree in high-quality scripted entertainment across TV and film. A multi award-winning indie, Baby Cow was co-founded in 1999 by Steve Coogan and Henry Normal and has gone on to work with a host of Britain’s most loved talent.
Its titles for television include Gavin & Stacey, Alan Partridge, The Mighty Boosh, Camping, The Trip, Uncle and Red Dwarf, while its film output includes Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, Stan & Ollie and the Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated Philomena.
Earlier this year, Channel 4 commissioned Chivalry, a comedy drama written by and starring Sarah Solemani and Steve Coogan. And Baby Cow will be back in production soon with BBC Two comedy series, The Witchfinder, written and directed by Rob and Neil Gibbons and starring Daisy May Cooper and Tim Key.
Steve Coogan, Creative Director and Founder, said: “Baby Cow has been going through a period of transition and development, expanding into drama as well as building on our reputation for pioneering comedy shows. We are now at a stage where much of our slate is fighting fit and ready to go. I, along with Christine Langan and the wealth of talent we have nurtured, have been beavering away on a number of diverse, new films, comedies and TV dramas. Sarah Monteith’s appointment is a testament to BBC Studio’s faith in our prospects. She is exactly what the company needs to maximise the potential of the quality content that is the hallmark of Baby Cow.”
Christine Langan, CEO said: “I’m delighted to welcome Sarah to Baby Cow. Her breadth of experience - across content, marketing and commercial - will help to power an exciting new period of growth for the company and support this much-loved brand.”
Tim Davie, CEO, BBC Studios, said: “Sarah has been a fantastic colleague, adapting her many talents to lead successfully in a number of roles over the years. I know she will contribute significantly to Baby Cow - a prolific and high-quality indie partner of BBC Studios.”
Sarah Monteith said: “From Partridge and Gavin & Stacey through to Philomena and Stan & Ollie, Baby Cow’s bold and award-winning creative brings the very best of British quality to the global stage. As for so many others, this content is part of my life and I am hugely excited to work with Steve, Christine and the rest of the team on what’s to come.”
Sarah joins Baby Cow Productions with 20 years’ experience of the media industry. Most recently interim Chief Marketing Officer for BBC Studios, she has held a number of leadership roles at the BBC, becoming BBC Studios’ Global Director, Brand & Content Marketing in 2018 and Director, Marketing Strategy and Operations, BBC in 2014. She joined the BBC Group in 2011 as Marketing & Fundraising Director for BBC Children in Need. Before this, Sarah founded digital brand agency, Brolly, in 2004, serving a diverse client portfolio of new and established brands. She joined Sky in 2000 as Brand Director, having started her media career at Chrysalis Group.
BBC Studios became a shareholder in Baby Cow Productions in 2008 and has been its majority owner since 2016.
BABY COW OPTIONS SCREEN RIGHTS TO GILL HORNBY’S NEW NOVEL MISS AUSTEN
MISS AUSTEN, the critically acclaimed new novel from Gill Hornby (The Hive) has been optioned for TV by Baby Cow Productions.
Already named as one of the best novels of 2020 by The Times, Financial Times and BBC Online, MISS AUSTEN will be published by Penguin on January 23rd, and by Flatiron in the United States in April 2020.
MISS AUSTEN is a wonderfully original and emotionally complex novel about the lives and loves of sisters Cassandra and Jane Austen, inspired by Cassandra's infamous burning of Jane’s letters, a mystery that has long puzzled biographers and academics.
Baby Cow Chief Executive, Christine Langan said: ‘Gill has brought such wit, ingenuity and heartbreaking tenderness to this literary mystery, turning it into a terrifically compelling and relevant novel. Not only does she effortlessly capture Austen’s unique and irresistible tone but, in Cassandra, she may have delivered us the ultimate Austen heroine. Baby Cow is thrilled to be entrusted with bringing this gem to our screens and to a whole new audience’.
Gill Hornby said: ‘I am delighted that Miss Austen is going to the brilliant team at Baby Cow, and excited to work with them as Cassandra moves from the page to the screen’.
‘Miss Austen is a novel of great kindness, often unexpectedly moving, with much to say about the status of “invisible” older women’. – The Observer
Gill Hornby is represented by Caroline Wood at Felicity Bryan Associates.
ABOUT GILL HORNBY
Gill Hornby is the author of the novels The Hive and All Together Now, as well as The Story of Jane Austen, a biography of Austen for young readers. She lives in Kintbury, Berkshire, with her husband and their four children.
ABOUT BABY COW PRODUCTIONS
Baby Cow develops and produces bold, high-quality scripted entertainment across all genres including comedy and drama and across all mediums including television, film and radio.
Established in 1999, the company has delivered its signature brand of comedy to audiences worldwide for over twenty years with iconic characters and beloved series including Alan Partridge, The Mighty Boosh, Red Dwarf, Nighty Night, Gavin & Stacey, Camping and The Trip. Baby Cow is currently in production with The Witchfinder starring Tim Key and This Country co-creator Daisy May Cooper. Baby Cow’s feature film output includes Alpha Papa, Philomena and Stan & Ollie.
SARAH SOLEMANI AND STEVE COOGAN BRING CHIVALRY TO CHANNEL 4
Channel 4 has commissioned Chivalry, a timely 6x30’ comedy drama from Baby Cow Productions. Written by and starring Sarah Solemani (Him and Her, Barry) and Steve Coogan (Alan Partridge, Philomena) Chivalry skewers and satirises the complex state of contemporary sexual politics, while asking if romance can survive in the post #MeToo era.
An unlikely couple are put together by a cynical studio exec to salvage a failing movie. Bobby (played by Sarah Solemani), is a woke writer/director and mother of one, with a precarious relationship and a dodgy visa. She has industry heat after her successful, low-budget indie debut and is promised studio funding for her feminist Biblical biopic if she can rescue this sexually controversial thriller first.
Cameron (Steve Coogan), is a successful film producer and ‘ladies man’, who has just been dumped by yet another twenty-something girlfriend (via WhatsApp). He knows he must detoxify his sexist movie or face ruin, and thus, an unlikely partnership is forged.
As Bobby and Cameron work through their gender tensions, a creeping attraction and the nagging feeling that they are just pawns in the studio's agenda for a Saudi buyout, reshooting a toxic sex scene becomes the tip of the iceberg.
How fluid are our politics and how political are our fluids? And can romance blossom - not in spite of #MeToo, but because of it?
Sarah Solemani said: “Chivalry was born through a series of fiery debates with my comedy hero and renowned feminist, Steve Coogan. I am thrilled to be working with him, Christine Langan and Channel 4 commissioner, Caroline Hollick, on bringing this timely story to the screen.”
Steve Coogan said: “I am delighted to be working with the very funny, clever Sarah Solemani in the landscape of what in less enlightened times was called ‘the battle of the sexes’. Chivalry is more of a painfully honest, funny fencing match. We will attack, riposte, lunge, parry and counter-parry and perhaps, when the bout is over, take off our masks revealing our true selves.”
Ian Katz, Director of Programmes, Channel 4, said: “It would be hard to think of a better double-act to explore the charged territory of gender politics in a post Me Too world than Solemani and Coogan. Their script is timely, human and laugh out loud funny.”
Caroline Hollick, Channel 4 Head of Drama said: “I’m so pleased to be able to bring the combined creative brilliance of Sarah Solemani and Steve Coogan to Channel 4. In this era of #MeToo and complex gender politics, Chivalry feels the perfect way to explore this pertinent issue with a sense of fun, a razor-sharp wit and with romance at its heart.“
Christine Langan CEO and Executive Producer, Baby Cow Productions: “With irresistible chemistry, Sarah and Steve have delivered a truly refreshing take on contemporary sexual politics with a liberating, modern spin on romance. Baby Cow is thrilled to be working with Channel 4 drama, whose bold appetite for good humoured debate made it the natural home for Chivalry.”
Chivalry has been commissioned by Channel 4 Head of Drama Caroline Hollick and is a Baby Cow Production.
ABOUT BABY COW PRODUCTIONS
Baby Cow develops and produces bold, high-quality scripted entertainment across all genres including comedy and drama and across all mediums including television, film and radio.
Established in 1999, the company has delivered its signature brand of comedy to audiences worldwide for over twenty years with iconic characters and beloved series including Alan Partridge, The Mighty Boosh, Red Dwarf, Nighty Night, Gavin & Stacey, Camping and The Trip. Baby Cow is currently in production with The Witchfinder starring Tim Key and This Country co-creator Daisy May Cooper. Baby Cow’s feature film output includes Alpha Papa, Philomena and Stan & Ollie.
THE WITCHFINDER COMING TO BBC TWO
The Witchfinder is an original new comedy for BBC Two following a witchfinder and his suspect on a road-free road trip through an England gripped by civil war, famine and plague.
It’s the year of our Lord 1647 and fear of witchcraft is rife. Puritanical Christianity, deep-seated superstition and a willingness to scapegoat outsiders have created a tinderbox of suspicion in which few are safe. In this environment, witchfinding has flourished, as self-appointed witch experts achieve hero status by investigating accusations of witchery and extracting confessions.
A failing witchfinder (Tim Key) transports a suspected witch (Daisy May Cooper) across 1640s East Anglia to a trial that could change his fortunes forever. But his captive is the worst possible travel companion: an inquisitive, uncouth woman whose ability to prick his pomposity and ask uncomfortable questions turns a straightforward journey into a life-changing ordeal.
The Witchfinder is created by Neil and Rob Gibbons, the writers and directors of This Time with Alan Partridge.
Daisy May Cooper says: “I cannot wait to be starring in The Witchfinder with the absolutely brilliant Tim Key. I've always wanted to be a witch, my mother says I've got the nose and chin hair for it. I dabbled a bit in witchcraft when I was in my teens and ended up accidentally inviting an incubus into my house. He was an absolute prick.”
Tim Key says: “I’m delighted to be working with the mercurially talented Gibbons brothers again, particularly on something set in 17th century England - which they seem to have a fairly loose grasp of - and am excited to do a road trip but on horses (I can’t ride a horse). I love the idea of Daisy May Cooper being a pissed-off witch anyway so the fact that I’m playing her antagonist is the icing on the cake. Can’t wait to saddle up.”
Kate Daughton, Head of Comedy Commissioning says: “In The Witchfinder, the Gibbons brothers have managed to create a timelessly compelling odd couple, forced together on a journey through one of the most baffling moments of English history. Tim Key and Daisy May Cooper are two of the UK’s funniest people and I can’t wait to see them tackle gender politics, male privilege and bees … on horseback.”
Christine Langan, CEO of Baby Cow Productions says: “Baby Cow is thrilled to be bringing the Gibbons brothers hysterical-heretical-historical epic The Witchfinder to BBC Two. Rob and Neil have put a truly modern twist on this macabre moment in time, as Daisy May Cooper’s ‘modern-day’ everywoman gets dragged to trial by Tim Key’s inept, chauvinist, careerist witchfinder. In Daisy and Tim we have one of the best double-acts in British comedy and we can’t wait for you to see them fight their way across East Anglia.”
Written and directed by Neil and Rob Gibbons (This Time with Alan Partridge, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, Mid Morning Matters, Veep). The producer is Dave Lambert and the executive producers are Christine Langan and Steve Coogan. The Witchfinder is a Baby Cow production for BBC Two.
The 6x30’ series was ordered for BBC Two by channel controller Patrick Holland and Shane Allen, Controller of Comedy Commissioning. Kate Daughton, Head of Comedy Commissioning will be editor on the series.
Full casting and broadcast information will be announced in due course.
Tim Key
Tim Key is an actor, writer, and performance poet. He has won the Edinburgh Comedy Award, and been nominated three times for the Barry and once for the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality. On screen he plays Sidekick Simon in the Alan Partridge franchise and has appeared in The Double, Inside Number 9 and Peep Show. More recently he has been seen in Pls Like, Greed and The End of the F***ing World. Tim’s radio show ‘Tim Key's Late Night Poetry Programme’ has run for years on BBC Radio 4, with a fifth series recording this Autumn. Tim also starred in Art at The Old Vic and continues to write and perform his own five star live shows. Most recently he made the critically acclaimed Megadate which he performed at The Old Vic before adapting it into a BAFTA-nominated BBC One comedy short, with the subtly different title: Wonderdate.
Daisy May Cooper
Daisy May Cooper was born and brought up in Cirencester in the Cotswolds. She went on to attend RADA, studying for a BA in acting. Whilst there her brother Charlie moved to London to stay with her. With very little money and missing home, the pair began to talk about the characters they had grown up with back in the Cotswolds. From this the character of Kerry was born and before long they found themselves writing a script. That early writing became the hit BBC Three sitcom This Country starring the siblings. An under-the-radar gem, This Country gradually built up a dedicated following and has since racked up numerous awards including the BAFTA for Female performance in a Comedy Programme for Daisy May last year.
Daisy May has recently starred in Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield and written and performed in his upcoming HBO series Avenue 5
PARTRIDGE HAS A SECOND SHOT
Filming has begun today on This Time With Alan Partridge, the new Partridge project coming to BBC One later this year, a quarter of a century after his BBC debut.
The show will see Alan (Steve Coogan) handed a career lifeline - the chance to stand in (temporarily) as co-host on This Time, an evening weekday magazine show.
His first return to live television since his 90s chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You was cancelled after a guest was fatally shot on air, This Time is the perfect shop window for a man of Alan’s gravitas and will, or should, see him finally recognised as one of the heavyweight broadcasters of his era.
The show itself is a heady mix of consumer affairs, current affairs, viewer interaction, highbrow interview and lightweight froth; very much the sweet spots for a man whose CV boasts over two decades of weekday local radio. And with an array of diverse subjects on the agenda, it promises the perfect fit for a man whose broadcasting style has been described as ‘equidistant between chitchat and analysis.’
Joining Steve Coogan on the sofa will be Susannah Fielding as his female co-presenter Jennie Gresham, and Tim Key as Simon ‘formerly Sidekick Simon’ Denton. Full casting will be announced in due course.
Written by Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons, Steve Coogan. Directed by Neil Gibbons and Rob Gibbons. The producer is Ted Dowd and the executive producers are Christine Langan and Steve Coogan. A Baby Cow production for BBC.
The series was ordered for BBC One by Shane Allen, Controller of Comedy Commissioning. The Commissioner for the BBC is Kate Daughton.
The 6x30' series will be shown on BBC One later this year.