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Funboys began as a 2023 BBC Three short that quietly stole its way into my heart, then grew into four tightly wound, twenty‑minute episodes on BBC One and iPlayer. Created, written, directed by—and starring—Ryan Dylan and Rian Lennon, it feels like an indie experiment that accidentally hit the mainstream sweet spot.

From those first sweeping shots of emerald pastures and Guinness‑swigging locals, the series teases pastoral calm before dropping us into a dimly lit living room where Callum, Jordan and Lorcan wage war over video‑game controllers and fizzy‑drink challenges.

At its core, Funboys operates in mockumentary territory but rejects the safety of talking‑head interviews. Instead, it stitches together sketch‑style vignettes—each edit snapping us from quiet absurdity to full‑throttle cringe comedy, reminiscent of Godard’s jump‑cuts or Truffaut’s playful ruptures of time. The camera lingers on the boys’ expressions long...

All About The Gripping BBC British Thriller Leaving Viewers In Awe! (Photo Credit – Prime Video)

Spoiler Alert: The following article discusses major plot twists from Am I Being Unreasonable?

British TV has never been short on jaw-dropping twists, but every now and then, a show comes along that manages to outfox even the most seasoned viewers. While classics like Doctor Who’s “Bad Wolf” arc or the relentless paranoia of Black Mirror have all carved their names into the hall of fame, one dark horse has quietly or, rather, explosively claimed the crown: Am I Being Unreasonable?

Am I Being Unreasonable?: The Genre-Bending Gamechanger

Am I Being Unreasonable? Is in the middle of shows that bring twist-heavy storms. A Daisy May Cooper creation, the show begins as one thing and ends as something entirely different. Cooper, known for her deadpan brilliance in This Country, flips expectations with this moody,...

Exclusive: I May Destroy You producer Various Artists Limited (Val) has landed its latest BBC project, a drama series about a family holiday to Greece that turns into a nightmare.

Val is currently casting on Two Weeks in August, which comes from The Shrink Next Door writer Catherine Shepherd. ITV Studios is producing in association with and selling worldwide.

Two Weeks in August tells the story of a woman who goes on holiday with her family and friends to rediscover joy in her life. Zoe begins to act on her deepest desires and the holiday she hoped for becomes a reckoning for a group of adults who refuse to grow up. But when they discover they are trapped on the island, and become faced with real life-or-death situations, the group soon turn on each other to find out who is to blame.

Val is on a hot streak with the BBC,...

Exclusive: UTA has signed BAFTA-award-winning actress and writer Daisy May Cooper for representation in all areas.

Cooper first gained widespread recognition as the co-creator, writer, and star of the critically acclaimed BBC Three comedy series This Country. She received BAFTA Awards for Best Scripted Comedy and Best Female Comedy Performance for her portrayal of ‘Kerry Mucklowe.’

The mockumentary sitcom gives an inside look at rural life in a small English village in the Cotswolds through the lives of two cousins, one played by Cooper and the other by her brother Charlie Cooper who co-created the series. This Country ran for three seasons from 2017-2020.

Following This Country, Cooper starred in the BBC One/HBO dramedy series Rain Dogs. She led the cast in the role of ‘Costello,’ a single mother raising her daughter on the fringes of society attempting to go straight in a crooked world. The 2023 series also starred Jack Farthing,...

On Friday 20 December 2024, BBC Three broadcasts Charlie Cooper’s Myth Country!

Winter Solstice Season 1 Episode 4 Episode Summary

The upcoming episode of “Charlie Cooper’s Myth Country,” titled “Winter Solstice,” promises to be an exciting exploration of alternative winter celebrations. This episode will air on BBC Three and takes viewers on a journey to Devon, where Charlie Cooper seeks to escape the usual modern Christmas traditions.

In “Winter Solstice,” Charlie wraps up warm and dives into the rich history of winter festivals that still thrive across the country. Many of these celebrations have roots in ancient pagan customs, offering a glimpse into how people celebrated during the winter months long before the influence of contemporary holiday practices. Charlie’s investigation will not only highlight these unique events but also showcase the vibrant communities that keep these traditions alive.

As Charlie visits various wild winter festivals, the episode will reveal the colorful...

Charlie Cooper, the writer and star of the BBC’s This Country, sets out on a unique journey in the first episode of his new series, Charlie Cooper’s Myth Country. With an old AA van as his trusty companion, Cooper sets out to explore the fascinating world of British folklore, specifically the legend of Black Shuck, […]

Charlie Cooper’s Myth Country: Black Shuck...

This article contains references to suicide and sexual assault.

A good plot twist can be the making of an unforgettable TV show. If a storyline has been a little tedious, the right unexpected scene can make all the difference in getting viewers' approvals. Whether in comedy, drama or horror, audiences don't always want to be able to predict the plot mid-way. Otherwise, what's the point of carrying on watching?

The other side of that is that a show can appear to be building up to something utterly unpredictable, only for it to fall flat and not be as exciting as one might hope. There are plenty of writers and creators who have managed to get their twists just right. For the British TV industry, a number of shows have been hailed for their overall excellent plot, which is underlined with an unforgettable twist that no one saw coming.

Fleabag Felt...

The BBC has announced a new six-part sitcom, Can You Keep a Secret?, for BBC iPlayer and BBC One. The series will star comedy icons Dawn French and Mark Heap and is created by Simon Mayhew-Archer, known for This Country and Josh. This project was revealed by Jon Petrie, Director of BBC Comedy, at the […]

BBC Announces ‘Can You Keep a Secret?’, Starring Dawn French and Mark Heap...

Dawn French is returning to the BBC with a sitcom from This Country’s Simon Mayhew-Archer, CBS Studios and Big Talk.

French is co-starring with Mark Heap on Can You Keep a Secret?, in which the comedy icon will play widower Debbie Fenton, who will stop at nothing to make sure her family’s protected. Unfortunately, most of the time the person they really need protecting from is her. When her hermit-like husband William (Heap) unexpectedly dies, she makes an outlandish decision that will put the family under more pressure than ever before.

French hasn’t appeared on the BBC since a French and Saunders Christmas special in 2017. She made her name with her sketch show alongside Jennifer Saunders and has appeared in a wealth of other comedies and dramas, as well as performing stand up.

Can You Keep a Secret? is being created and written by Mayhew-Archer and directed by Ghosts’ Simon Hynd.

“The Traitors” U.K. fans are in for a treat as the BBC today confirmed a fourth season of the hit show as well as a celebrity edition.

The news, unveiled at the Edinburgh TV Festival today, comes ahead of a third season of the show, which has already been been shot in the Scottish Highlands.

No participants or broadcast date have yet been confirmed for the nine-part celebrity version or Season 4, which will consist of 12 episodes.

Hosted by Claudia Winkleman, the U.K. edition of the psychological gameshow is produced by Studio Lambert, part of All3Media.

“’The Traitors’ has well and truly established itself as an unmissable highlight of the year and the news of a fourth outing, alongside a brand new celebrity version coming to the BBC, will take the series to a whole new level,” said Kalpna Patel-Knight, the BBC’s head of entertainment. “It will once...

Meta Comedy ‘Make That Movie’ Kicks Off Channel 4 Edinburgh Commissions

Channel 4 has opened its Edinburgh TV Festival commissioning roster with a comedy about a hotshot director who scours the country for everyday people who have an idea for a feature film. Make that Movie is created by 2022 Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Sam Campbell (Taskmaster) and directed by Joe Pelling (Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared). Campbell plays himself alongside a team racing against the clock as they attempt to transform ideas into a film in just three days. Starring as Campbell’s filmmakers are Lara Ricote (2022 Edinburgh Comedy Awards Best Newcomer, Break Clause) as runner Jess, Aaron Chen (Fisk) as intimacy coordinator Sebastian, Helen Bauer (Am I Being Unreasonable?) as sound engineer Pat, and David Hargreaves (This Country) as cinematographer Winnie. Channel 4 comedy boss Charlie Perkins said Campbell “epitomises the colour, creativity and innovation that Channel 4 comedy stands for.” The...

BritBox will exclusively premiere the second season of the Original crime drama Sherwood on November 14 in the U.S. and Canada, the streaming service announced today.

The first season of the BAFTA-nominated series was one of the most-watched shows in the UK, and the second season is a suspense-filled follow-up driven by an all-star cast of celebrated British actors.

Directed by the acclaimed British film director Clio Barnard and Tom George, this new and Original drama from Nottingham-born James Graham stars David Morrissey, Lesley Manville, Monica Dolan, David Harewood, and Lorraine Ashbourne.

The cast list continues with Robert Lindsay, Stephen Dillane, Sharlene Whyte, Perry Fitzpatrick, Christine Bottomley, Philip Jackson, Aisling Loftus, Bill Jones, Adam Hugill, Ria Zmitrowicz, Robert Emms, Michael Balogun, Oliver Huntingdon, Jorden Myrie, Conor Deane, and Bethany Asher.

The second season further explores the powerful themes that made the first so resonant to audiences. Set in the present day,...

Exclusive: BBC Studios Productions, which is behind series such as ABC’s Dancing With The Stars and CBS’ Ghosts, is bringing together its U.S. and UK production teams in a restructure that will see the departure of Valerie Bruce.

The company, which is the commercial production division of the British public broadcaster, is aligning its U.S. unscripted entertainment and scripted teams, largely based out of LA, with their UK counterparts.

As such, Bruce, who is General Manager of its LA Productions unit, is leaving after 13 years.

The move will see Ryan O’Dowd, EVP, Entertainment & Music, reporting directly to Matt Forde, BBC Studios Productions’ MD, Global Entertainment, who is based in London. O’Dowd, who is understood to have renewed his deal with BBC Studios, will now work closer with the company’s UK development team as it looks to develop more formats that can travel into the U.

BAFTA and Rts award-winning writer and actor Charlie Cooper, known for his work in This Country, is venturing into new territory with his upcoming factual series, Charlie Cooper’s Local Legends (working title), on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer. In this series, Cooper explores rural myths and legends across the UK, stepping out from his familiar […]

Charlie Cooper’s Local Legends Set for BBC Three...

Exclusive: Here’s a first look at Sherwood Season 2, the highly-anticipated next instalment of James Graham’s BBC drama.

Filming on the House Productions show recently took place in and around the UK city Nottingham, and the images show the likes of Lorraine Ashbourne, Monica Dolan, Perry Fitzpatrick, David Morrissey, David Harewood, Michael Balogun, Christine Bottomley, Oliver Huntingdon and Robert Lindsay in character. Scroll to the bottom for all seven images.

Season 1 was a ratings success and was one of the most-watched British dramas of 2022, following a murder that shocks a former mining town where divisions still remain years after the miners’ strikes of 1984 and 1985.

The second season will introduce two new families, who become entangled with the Sparrows from the first run, entering a complex web of local gangs, old rivalries, revenge, and betrayal. At the same time, a new Sheriff of Nottingham fights passionately against a proposed new mine,...

American TV bosses obviously didn’t learn many lessons from “Episodes,” the Showtime/BBC co-production which brilliantly skewered the habit of adapting British sitcoms, and removing all nuances, subtleties, and idiosyncrasies in the process. In the 13 years since its premiere, there’s been numerous failed pilots (“Spy”), ratings disasters (“Free Agents”), and entire series considered unfit for public consumption (“Us and Them”) which originated across the pond. Now the most singular UK comedy of the 2010s is going transatlantic.

The BAFTA-nominated “Friday Night Dinner” — which served up 37 episodes from 2011-2020 —stemmed from creator Robert Popper’s real-life secular Jewish family and their weekly Shabbat meals, explaining why everything from its suburban London home to its lovable oddballs feels so wonderfully specific. Disappointingly, Amazon Freevee’s “Dinner with the Parents” is as generic as its title.

The 10-part series on Freevee does attempt to retain some of the original’s quirks.

Exclusive: Hit CBS comedy Ghosts came out of an interesting deal between BBC Studios, the production arm of the British public broadcaster, and Lionsgate.

That deal, which was initially signed in 2018, has now come to an end, Deadline understands.

This comes as two of the key executives involved in the co-production pact, Rachel Bendavid and Angie Stephenson, have secured new roles at BBC Studios LA Productions, the Culver City-based division of the BBC.

“Our scripted co-production partnership with Lionsgate has been successful and productive, leading to one of the biggest hit comedies on television. While we have mutually agreed not to extend our formal business agreement, Lionsgate will remain a valued partner, and we will continue to work together for years to come on the hit show Ghosts and on an array of projects in development,” a BBC Studios spokeswoman told Deadline. “We are pleased to welcome Rachel Bendavid to...

As Reece Shearsmith just announced, it’s the beginning of the end for Inside No. 9. Filming on the horror-comedy anthology’s ninth and final series began in late 2023, which means a wrap on one of the BBC’s most consistently entertaining and inventive shows is imminent.

Oh it's the beginning of the end. #insideno9

— Reece Shearsmith ❄️ (@ReeceShearsmith) January 8, 2024

Series nine is expected to air in spring 2024, and will add a final six episodes to the existing 49 stories in Shearsmith and co-creator Steve Pemberton’s back catalogue. Barring the first look image above, which shows Pemberton in drag at an underground train station (platform no. nine?), we don’t know anything about the stories, settings or characters yet, but we do know who’ll be joining the pair as guest stars… and it’s a deep bench.

One of Britain’s greatest working actors, Eddie Marsan will appear. As will the brilliant Siobhan Finneran,...

Paramount+ has teamed up with Sex Education producer Eleven to make a series about a bachelor party that ends up with the revelers in prison.

Filming has commenced on the UK original, which is titled Stags and stars Nico Mirallegro (Passenger), Charlie Cooper (This Country), and Asim Chaudhry (People Just Do Nothing).

Other members of the ensemble cast include Corin Silva, Sophie Lenglinger, Paul Forman, Jojo Macari, Cavan Clerkin, Paulina Galvez, and Oscar Foronda.

Here’s the log line: “The six-part series follows groom-to-be Stu (Mirallegro) and his friends on his stag do in South America. What was meant to be a week of drink, debauchery and fun takes a dark turn. Instead of boarding a flight back to the UK, the stags are sent to a lawless prison island run by two warring siblings.

“Quickly it becomes clear that the stags need to pick a side to have any chance of survival.

Network: Fox

Episodes: 27 (half-hour)

Seasons: Two

TV show dates: March 17, 2022 -- February 2, 2023

Series status: Cancelled

Performers include: Seann William Scott, Chelsea Holmes, Sam Straley, Taylor Ortega, Krystal Smith, Aya Cash, and Justin Linville.

TV show description:

A mockumentary comedy series, the Welcome to Flatch TV show is based on the BBC format, This Country, by Daisy May Cooper and Charlie Cooper.

Read More…...

Fox will not be moving ahead with “Welcome to Flatch” Season 3.

“While audience response was not as strong as we had hoped, we were thrilled with the creativity of the enormously talented Jenny Bicks and Paul Feig, as well as the outstanding, dedicated cast and crew they assembled,” a Fox spokesperson told TheWrap. “We look forward to collaborating with them again in the future and are thankful for all of our partners at Lionsgate, Jenny’s Perkins Street Productions, Paul’s Feigco Entertainment, BBC Studios’ Angie Stephenson and Charlie Cooper and Daisy May Cooper.”

Shortly after the WGA strike started in May, Fox announced updates for its scripted series. The only two series the network hadn’t made an announcement about were “Welcome to Flatch” and “HouseBroken,” both of which were up for a third season.

“You can expect some announcements as soon as the strike ends,” president of scripted...

Fox is further paring down its live action comedy roster.

The network has canceled Welcome to Flatch after two seasons. The mockumentary series, created by Jenny Bicks and based on the BBC series This Country, finished its second season in February. The series also counts Paul Feig among its executive producers.

“While audience response was not as strong as we had hoped, we were thrilled with the creativity of the enormously talented Jenny Bicks and Paul Feig, as well as the outstanding, dedicated cast and crew they assembled,” Fox said in a statement. “We look forward to collaborating with them again in the future and are thankful for all of our partners at Lionsgate, Jenny’s Perkins Street Productions, Paul’s Feigco Entertainment, BBC Studios’ Angie Stephenson, and Charlie Cooper and Daisy May Cooper.”

Welcome to Flatch follows the eccentric residents of a small Ohio town, centered on two cousins...

Fox has canceled the comedy series “Welcome to Flatch” after two seasons, Variety has learned.

The mockumentary series aired its final episode on Fox on Feb. 2, with that now serving as the series finale. The show was inspired by the British format “This Country.”

“The comedy ‘Welcome to Flatch’ will not be returning to Fox for a third season,” Fox said in a statement. “While audience response was not as strong as we had hoped, we were thrilled with the creativity of the enormously talented Jenny Bicks and Paul Feig, as well as the outstanding, dedicated cast and crew they assembled. We look forward to collaborating with them again in the future and are thankful for all of our partners at Lionsgate, Jenny’s Perkins Street Productions, Paul’s Feigco Entertainment, BBC Studios’ Angie Stephenson, and Charlie Cooper and Daisy May Cooper.”

The logline for Season 2 states, “The documentary crew...

The cost of British comedy is just getting more expensive — news that doesn’t make great reading for the UK’s comic talent base.

Budgets for UK comedy shows are now closer to drama budgets than entertainment, with prices rising quickly in the past few years due to inflation, according to BBC Studios Comedy boss Josh Cole. This has stunted the chances of low-fi, low-budget comedies such as BBC3’s This Country from cutting through, he added.

“Comedy has got more expensive over the past could of years, even since when we made This Country,” he said. “Comedy was always closer to an entertainment budget and now it’s closer to a drama budget. You don’t necessarily have that two-tier system anymore. A gradual evolution added to inflation means the money doesn’t goes far in comedy.”

However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom, with Cole pointing to...

Fancy watching a no-nonsense Yorkshire cop on the brink of retirement finally taking down her nemesis? How about an Oxford scholar pitting his wits against a decades-long conspiracy? These are the premises for just two of the exciting British TV shows about to arrive in the US but that’s not all: there’s also globe-trotting sci-fi with big ideas, a fast-paced dark comedy, a remarkable depiction of marriage by two British acting stalwarts, and more besides.

From cosy crime to original comedy, here are the UK TV highlights coming to America:

Happy Valley Series 3

BBC America, Acorn TV, AMC+ – 22nd May at 10pm Et/Pt

Sally Wainwright’s excellent Yorkshire-based crime drama Happy Valley had been off UK screens since 2016, but returned for its highly-anticipated third and final series earlier this year.

The show centres on the straight-talking police sergeant Catherine Cawood, and her ongoing feud with the dangerous criminal Tommy Lee Royce.

Things aren’t looking great for Fox comedy Welcome To Flatch.

The series, which is a remake of British comedy This Country, was the only live-action series that the network hasn’t made a decision on and it take a while.

Michael Thorn, President of Scripted Programming, Fox Entertainment, said that “launching our next great live action comedy is a top priority, so you can expect some announcements as soon as the strike ends”.

Welcome To Flatch, which comes from Jenny Bicks and Paul Feig, has aired for two seasons on Fox with its second season finishing in February.

The series, which stars Sean William Scott, Holmes, Sam Straley and Aya Cash, is produced by Lionsgate, BBC Studios’ LA production arm and Fox Entertainment.

When asked about a renewal decision on Flatch, Thorn pointed to the renewal of Joel McHale-fronted Animal Control for a second season. “Right now we...

If you have to ask whether you’re being unreasonable, you probably are. And who’s asking that question in Hulu’s Am I Being Unreasonable? Everyone.

In the first moments of the premiere (now streaming on Hulu), we witness a romantic train station flirtation. A woman enters a soon-to-be departing train and a man kisses her goodbye under its threshold. Outside, snow falls in heaping flakes. Romantic, right? Until the doors close on the man’s jacket and he’s stuck dangling outside the train, like some kind of sick holiday ornament. Despite the woman’s frantic efforts to free him,...

In the United Kingdom, Daisy May Cooper is a certified television star, a familiar enough presence as both an actress and series creator that she appeared on the British version of The Masked Singer earlier this spring. She was the Otter.

Had Cooper been revealed on the American Masked Singer in February, Jenny McCarthy probably would have been totally flummoxed. Cooper might have been familiar from a pair of Armando Iannucci projects — The Personal History of David Copperfield and Avenue 5 — but instead of This Country, an award-winning comedy she starred in and created with brother Charlie, we got U.S. remake Welcome to Flatch; and instead of the British smash hit Taskmaster, on which Cooper contributed to the 10th season, we got the American version of Taskmaster, which bombed in its lone Comedy Central season.

That’s changing, of course. American audiences are getting a crash course in Daisy May Cooper this spring,...

Could BBC One’s Rain Dogs be the first time a fairly explicit “glory hole” scene, complete with slurpy sound effects, has been transmitted on British television? The nearest precedent I can think of was a transmission of the biopic of the outrageous Sixties playwright Joe Orton, Prick Up Your Ears, but, from memory, there was no full-on fellatio in the bogs depicted. So Rain Dogs has at least made its mark for that.

That sounds a bit dismissive, but it’s the reverse. Sleaze – proper, depressing, tawdry sleaze; sleaze infused with danger and drink – is rarely portrayed with much conviction on the telly, but this eight-part darker-than-dark sort-of-comedy makes you just as uneasy as our hero of the underworld, peep show performer Costello. The not-so-good-time girl is played with the usual brilliance by Daisy May Cooper. After Cooper’s delusional, unloved, Kerry in This Country through the gaslit Nic in Am I Being Unreasonable?...

Daisy May Cooper is under consideration to take over from Dame Judi Dench as M in the next iteration of the James Bond franchise, per multiple reports.

The Gloucestershire-born actor and writer is best known for her West Country comedy series This Country, which she wrote and starred in.

According to The Sun, Cooper’s potential casting came about after Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s work on No Time to Die paved the way for more comedy in the franchise.

“Daisy is a close pal of Phoebe, whose involvement in Bond was such a success that it sparked an unlikely conversation,” a source told the tabloid.

“Suddenly the production team were getting excited about the prospect of really taking ‘M’ in a different direction.”

Eon Productions chief Barbara Broccoli is currently on the search for the next 007 after Daniel Craig’s retirement.

“With Daniel [Craig] leaving, it seemed the time to start...

Daisy May Cooper is under consideration to take over from Dame Judi Dench as M in the next iteration of the James Bond franchise, per multiple reports.

The Gloucestershire-born actor and writer is best known for her West Country comedy series This Country, which she wrote and starred in.

According to The Sun, Cooper’s potential casting came about after Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s work on No Time to Die paved the way for more comedy in the franchise.

“Daisy is a close pal of Phoebe, whose involvement in Bond was such a success that it sparked an unlikely conversation,” a source told the tabloid.

“Suddenly the production team were getting excited about the prospect of really taking ‘M’ in a different direction.”

Eon Productions chief Barbara Broccoli is currently on the search for the next 007 after Daniel Craig’s retirement.

“With Daniel [Craig] leaving, it seemed the time to start...

Would the Am I Being Unreasonable actor make a great M? Sure. But not if it means the 007 franchise is turning into Austin Powers

You can have the good news first. At last, the ceaseless pounding drumbeat of speculation over who will play the next James Bond has paused. A semi-official moratorium has fallen over the shrieking clickbait dedicated to wondering aloud whether Aaron Taylor Johnson or Idris Elba or about eight people from Game of Thrones or any actor seen in public in a suit will be chosen to succeed Daniel Craig as James Bond.

Now for the bad news: this has happened because there is now a ceaseless pounding drumbeat of speculation over whether or not Daisy May Cooper from This Country will be the next M. For this week, everyone has suddenly decided that this is a thing, even though it probably isn’t.

Continue reading.

Chris Sussman, previously director of U.K. scripted for Netflix, has signed a first look deal with Banijay U.K. to develop original scripted projects.

The deal was struck with Banijay U.K. CEO Patrick Holland. It is part of the recently revealed £50 million ($59.3 million) Banijay U.K. Growth Fund which enables the group to partner with high profile talent, as well as investing in new businesses, to enhance growth.

During his time at Netflix (2019 – 2022), Sussman executive produced scripted series, including comedy series starring Rowan Atkinson, “Man Vs Bee,” satirical series “Black Mirror” and drama series based on Harlan Coben novel, “Stay Close,” starring Cush Jumbo, Jimmy Nesbitt and Richard Armitage.

Previously, as head of scripted comedy at BBC Studios (2016-2019), Sussman oversaw several commercial and critically-acclaimed series, including “Trying” (Apple TV), “This Country” (BBC 3), “Good Omens” (Amazon/ BBC2), “Famalam” (BBC3), “Inside No 9” (BBC2), “Upstart Crow” (BBC2) and “Wia” (BBC2).

Prior to this,...

Former Netflix UK Director of Scripted Chris Sussman has signed a deal with Banijay UK.

Under terms of the exclusive first-look agreement, he’ll develop original scripted projects, working with Banijay labels to produce them.

This is part of Banijay’s £50M ($59M) UK Growth Fund initiative, which is aimed at partnering the group with high-profile talent, investing in new business and striking other sorts of talent deals.

Sussman fits that bill. His credits include work on Fleabag, This Country, Catastrophe, Charlie Brooker’s Wipe, Good Omens, Mum, People Just Do Nothing and Bad Education. We revealed back in June last year that he was exiting his post at Netflix, where he had worked on shows such as Man Vs Bee and Harlan Coben drama Stay Close, and we later reported he was in talks to exec the fourth season of Apple TV+’s Trying.

Banijay UK CEO Patrick Holland first...

Exclusive: Hulu has acquired Daisy May Cooper’s hit BBC comedy-thriller Am I Being Unreasonable?

The streamer has taken U.S. rights to all six episodes of the genre-bending comedy, which was written by the This Country creator and Selin Hizli (Mum), and exec produced by Jack Thorne. Show will debut as a Hulu original on April 11. BBC Studios struck the deal, having shopped the show at Mipcom Cannes.

Am I Being Unreasonable?, which has been recommissioned for a second season, aired to critical acclaim on the BBC last September and is considered a frontrunner for the upcoming UK TV awards season.

The six-parter from Boffola Pictures and Happy Valley producer Lookout Point follows Nic (Cooper), a mother grieving a loss that she can’t share with anyone whilst stuck in a depressing marriage. Only her son, Ollie, keeps her going. But when Jen (Hizli) arrives in town,...

The world is fascinated by reality TV. From the Kardashian family, to the Real Housewives, viewers love to see the lives of interesting people captured on screen. Welcome to Flatch is like watching a reality-show, inside a show. The premise of this half-hour comedy series is that there is a documentary crew that is looking to explore the lives of the residents in a small American town called Flatch.

Out of the 1,526 people residing in the small town of Flatch, Ohio, there are two residents, in particular, that stand out to the documentary crew. They are cousins, Shrub and Kelly Mallet. The two are quite the troublemakers, but that’s to be expected as they search for creative ways to entertain themselves in their small, sleepy town.

While Shrub and Kelly remain the main focus of the documentary and of Welcome to Flatch, we are introduced to some of the...

Exclusive: Marc Lorber, Lionsgate’s SVP of International TV Co-Productions and Acquisitions, is exiting the studio after almost a decade.

Lorber joined Lionsgate in 2013 and was upped to his current post in 2019, leading a team focusing on identifying scripted TV dramas, miniseries and comedies that can be co-developed or produced around the world.

He has worked on projects including BAFTA-winning comedy Motherland, BBC Wales drama The Pact and Irish/Belgian co-production Northern Lights, which Deadline revealed Lionsgate had boarded in October. Lorber struck relationships with international networks at a time when the allure of non-u.S. content has skyrocketed, and he has also been across the BBC Studios deal that has seen adaptations of the likes of This Country and Ghosts remade in the States.

He departed amicably on December 31 and is yet to settle on his next career move.

Past employers include HBO Central Europe, where he was SVP and Executive Producer,...

Putting a wash on. Attending a school reunion. Making a lasagne. Just some of the things you might have been doing instead of watching TV in 2022. Whatever kept you away from the box, it was a mistake. What you should have been doing is catching up on the below – a selection of British sci-fi, supernatural drama, crime thrillers, and comedy. Because what’s better than the comfortable joy of watching fictional characters live their complicated lives, taking all the risks and making all the mistakes? Almost nothing. Unless you’re the sort of person who puts double cream and three types of cheese in your lasagne, in which case, carry on, you’re doing the Lord’s work.

As 2022 nears its conclusion, here are the new British TV shows that if you missed them on release, deserve your time and attention.

Somewhere Boy Stream on: All4 (UK only)

18-year-old Danny Harris...

What happens when ordinary people fall down the rabbit hole of extraordinary criminal activity? This is a premise that has captivated prestige television in recent years, from Sally Wainwright’s miraculous Happy Valley to Noah Hawley’s pitch-black re-imagination of Fargo. Normal people – neither good nor bad – trapped in a cycle of bad decisions. And this is the territory that Steven Moffatt – ex of the parishes of Doctor Who and Sherlock – is treading with his new four-part BBC thriller, Inside Man.

The man on the inside is Stanley Tucci’s Jefferson Grieff, a former professor of criminology now on death row for murdering his wife. He’s imprisoned somewhere deep in the arid American South, where he takes a philosophical stance on his impending death. When asked whether he wants to be executed, he replies with a shrug, “I don’t want to be executed, and my wife didn’t...

The BBC is 100 years old. It was formed back in 1922, the same year that the Soviet Union was founded. And while the Ussr perhaps shaped the course of 20th-century history more than any other entity, it also collapsed in 1989 – whereas the BBC is going strong to this day. So who’s to say which has the more profound legacy?

It would’ve been hard to predict in 1922, when Lord Reith was tasked with putting together a consortium of British wireless providers, the way that the corporation would develop. The past century has seen the BBC grow from a small-time radio organisation to a global media superpower. The BBC has become one of the world’s biggest digital news sources, it has broadcast coronations and weddings and funerals, Olympics and Euros and World Cups. All to millions of viewers. It has won Oscars and Emmys, broken stories that have rocked governments,...

Daisy May Cooper has said that people told her she “wasn’t funny any more” after losing weight.

The This Country star and co-creator is currently appearing in BBC series Am I Being Unreasonable?, which she also wrote.

In a new interview, Cooper said that she’d lost weight because she was “unhappy” with her health, but found herself receiving unexpected messages afterwards.

“I’m so for body positivity but when I was at my biggest I was at my most miserable and I had a massive food addiction,” she said. “I wasn’t healthy. I couldn’t breathe when I was walking up the stairs. I was so unhappy.

“I’ve had some messages like, ‘Well, now you’ve lost the weight you’re not funny any more.’ What the f***? Why do women have to be f***ing fat to be funny? That makes me so angry.”

The...

Given the state of British politics, I’m not sure that using a reality TV format to choose our next prime minister is such a terrible idea. Of course, Make Me Prime Minister (Channel 4) isn’t actually designed to do this – that’s the task of a tiny handful of unrepresentative Tory activists in Liz Truss’s case – but rather to entertain and to educate us a little.

I have to say, having been badly jaundiced by over-exposure to politics and politicians over some decades, I am pleasantly surprised at how well the show works. Somehow it actually manages to make the political process look like God’s work. A minor miracle.

Basically, it’s a bit of a rip-off of The Apprentice, with two teams of members of the public taking it in turns to be their “team leader”, ie Pm, and to take on assignments and make fools of themselves.

What happens when ordinary people fall down the rabbit hole of extraordinary criminal activity? This is a premise that has captivated prestige television in recent years, from Sally Wainwright’s miraculous Happy Valley to Noah Hawley’s pitch-black re-imagination of Fargo. Normal people – neither good nor bad – trapped in a cycle of bad decisions. And this is the territory that Steven Moffatt – ex of the parishes of Doctor Who and Sherlock – is treading with his new four-part BBC thriller, Inside Man.

The man on the inside is Stanley Tucci’s Jefferson Grieff, a former professor of criminology now on death row for murdering his wife. He’s imprisoned somewhere deep in the arid American South, where he takes a philosophical stance on his impending death. When asked whether he wants to be executed, he replies with a shrug, “I don’t want to be executed, and my wife didn’t...

What happens when ordinary people fall down the rabbit hole of extraordinary criminal activity? This is a premise that has captivated prestige television in recent years, from Sally Wainwright’s miraculous Happy Valley to Noah Hawley’s pitch-black re-imagination of Fargo. Normal people – neither good nor bad – trapped in a cycle of bad decisions. And this is the territory that Steven Moffatt – ex of the parishes of Doctor Who and Sherlock – is treading with his new four-part BBC thriller, Inside Man.

The man on the inside is Stanley Tucci’s Jefferson Grieff, a former professor of criminology now on death row for murdering his wife. He’s imprisoned somewhere deep in the arid American South, where he takes a philosophical stance on his impending death. When asked whether he wants to be executed, he replies with a shrug, “I don’t want to be executed, and my wife didn’t...

When I first heard about Am I Being Unreasonable?, I assumed it was some satire on the parenting website Mumsnet. The people on it spend an inordinate amount of their supposedly busy days discussing difficult tradespeople or the unsavoury sexual habits of their “Dh” (Dear Husband). Oftentimes they seek validation for their actions from their fellow members, by asking “…am I being unreasonable?” Or “Aibu” in the Mumsnet argot.

The latest comedy vehicle from This Country’s creator and star Daisy May Cooper isn’t about Mumsnet as such, except that the character she plays, Nic, inhabits a quintessentially middle-class English environment (Cooper’s native Cotswolds by the looks of things), and she seems prone to asking the most intimate questions about herself on Mumsnet. She has a nice house, a clever little son who’s more mature than she is, and an eccentric cleaning lady. She struggles to make friends in the village,...

One night in the mid-Noughties, young drama students Selin Hizli and Daisy May Cooper had a drunken dust-up in a lift. There was shoving. Slurring. No one can really remember what it was about. They were studying at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada) at the time. Hizli had got into the prestigious school at just 17, and Cooper, a few years older, found her classmate “precocious, arrogant and gobby”, like “bloody Lily Allen”, as Cooper recently told The Times. “I’ll own that completely,” Hizli tells me now, hooting with laughter. “I love Lily Allen. Anyway, I won Daisy over in the end.”

She certainly did. Around 15 years later, Hizli and Cooper have come together to make a unique, hilarious and unflinching comedy-thriller about the banal frustrations of motherhood, and the magic of female friendship in the face of some Very Badly Behaved Men. Am I Being Unreasonable?...

HBO has released a new trailer for the second season of its original series, "Avenue 5." The show was created by two-time Emmy Award-winner Armando Iannucci and stars Hugh Laurie ("House") and Josh Gad ("Beauty and the Beast"). If you haven't watched it yet, it's the story set about 40 years in the future aboard an interstellar spaceship. It's owned by clueless billionaire Herman Judd (Gad in a ponytail and some pretty wild outfits), who hired mainly attractive actors and models for his crew, so everyone would look good on the bridge and please the passengers. The ship itself is actually run by a second crew who weren't deemed pretty enough to be seen.

The titular space cruiser, Avenue 5, was supposed to be out on an eight-week cruise, but the death of an engineer and the temporary loss of artificial gravity changed their course. Instead of eight weeks, the ship would...

Saoirse Ronan was all set to appear in Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie movie starring Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie.

Gerwig has twice directed Ronan in the critically lauded films, Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019).

In a new interview with People, Ronan revealed that she was supposed to make a cameo appearance in the film but it didn’t pan out due to a scheduling conflict.

“I live in London and they were [filming] there,” the actor explained.

“There was a whole character I was going to play – another Barbie,” Ronan said. “I was gutted I couldn’t do it.”

Sadly, Ronan was busy filming The Outrun, The Unforgivable director Nora Fingscheidtan’s upcoming drama about a recovering alcoholic living on the Orkney Islands in Scotland.

Ronan added that she’s since texted Robbie and Gerwig asking if there is any chance she can still appear in Barbie in some capacity.

You don’t have to have seen Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap to enjoy wonderful theatreland-set, whodunnit See How They Run. Nor does it spoil things if you have (you probably still wont guess the ending of the film). Nor do you need a working knowledge of Agatha Christie herself, the peculiar contract that exists around The Mousetrap, 1950s London, Richard Attenborough and other real-life celebrities of the time, or indeed Tom Stoppard’s play The Real Inspector Hound. But part of the beauty of this incredibly meta, zippy, crime caper is that after the credits roll you’re probably going to want to do a bit of googling.

Set in London in the early ’50s, See How They Run sees The Mousetrap celebrating its 100th performance. The cast includes the celebrated Richard Attenborough (perfectly embodied by Harris Dickinson) and his wife Sheila Sim (Pearl Chanda), meanwhile obnoxious Hollywood director...

Government advice is that cinemas can stay open during official mourning period for Queen Elizabeth II.

The majority of UK-Ireland cinemas will remain open this weekend following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday, with distributors moving ahead with new releases.

Government ‘formal guidance’ for the period of mourning was sent by the UK Cinema Associationto its members yesterday shortly before the Queen’s death was confirmed. The guidance states there is “no expectation” for businesses – including cinemas – to close unless they wish to.

A government update received by the Ukca today and sent to members does not include any changes to this advice.