‘Am I Being Unreasonable?‘ Producer’s Development Boss Joins Sky
The Head of Development at Am I Being Unreasonable? producer Boffola Pictures is joining Sky Studios next month. Emily Allen will become Commissioning Executive for Comedy within Alex Moody’s Sky Studios comedy commissioning team and will have responsibility for ordering Sky original comedies from indies. She will join from Boffola Pictures, the indie run by former BBC comedy heads Shane Allen and Kate Daughton that produces BAFTA-winning Daisy May Cooper show Am I Being Unreasonable?. Prior to Boffola, she worked in the BBC comedy team. Sky original comedies launching in 2024 include Mr Bigstuff, which stars Danny Dyer, and comedy-drama Small Town, Big Story, written and directed by Chris O’Dowd, and starring Christina Hendricks and Paddy Considine. Brassic will also return for a sixth season. The news comes a few days after Sky Studios slimmed down its structure by unifying with the content division under the leadership of Cécile Frot-Coutaz. Moody hailed Allen’s “track-record for finding and developing talent” and said she is “rightly loved within the industry.”
BBC Studios Launching ‘Casualty’ Writer-Director Programs
BBC Studios is launching two TalentWorks initiatives on Casualty. The Casualty Directors’ Scheme is designed to give eight established directors the opportunity to learn on the long-running BBC medical drama in Cardiff, while Writers’ Studio: Casualty is an open script call for screenwriting talent who are looking to take the next step in their career. TalentWorks runs numerous BBC Studios training initiatives and has partnered with the likes of Louis Theroux in the past. “These two extraordinary opportunities have been designed to teach promising new voices how to deliver appointment-to-view, Saturday night television,” said Kris Green, a training exec at BBC Studios Drama Productions, which was recently taken over by Kate Oates – who was overseeing Casualty – following the departure of Priscilla Parish. BBC Studios Productions boss Ralph Lee announced he was exiting last Thursday. Elsewhere in the UK TV training space, fellow BBC drama Waterloo Road and Screen Manchester have unveiled the return of their producer trainee scheme for a fourth year.