Former BBCS boss plans to boost comedy slate
Former BBC in-house production chief Mark Freeland plans to develop intimate comedies like Car Share and Catastrophe after joining Yonderland indie Working Title TV.
Freeland joined the NBC Universal-backed indie earlier this week after leaving the production arm of the BBC, where he was controller of comedy, drama and entertainment, in September.
The exec producer of series including Miranda, Mrs Brown’s Boys and The Wrong Mans said he is excited by the success of intimate shows based around duos.
“What really excites me is that in this broadcasting world today, where you can have The Crown or Westworld blowing all standards out of the water, you can create a mass audience on BBC1 with two people in a car,” he said. “You don’t have to have scale.”
However, he added that he would still take advantage of the scale that the Hollywood-backed production giant can offer. Freeland highlighted Working Title films including Four Weddings And A Funeral, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Fargo.
“Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are iconic producers, so to be two floors below them is really thrilling,” he said. “The same talent is now doing movies and TV. I don’t expect I’ll win in the fight to secure them, but it’ll be fun talking to top talent who want to do both movies and TV.”
He is now building a slate of 30-minute series for broadcasters in the UK and US, as well as the global SVoD platforms, and has started to approach writers.
“I’ll try with all my might to create shows that travel,” he said. “But perhaps the only thing I’ve learned in 15 years is that if you divine something to be international without the authenticity of the writer, you’re not necessarily onto a winner.”
Freeland, who left the corporation after being offered the role of head of scripted comedy and drama at BBC Studios, will work closely with Working Title TV’s drama boss Andrew Woodhead, who joined the firm in March 2016 from Kudos. He will also partner with NBC Universal’s US-based executive vice-president Joann Alfano.
Freeland said he was drawn to the role after meeting NBC Universal International Studios president Michael Edelstein. “He floored me because he knew I had worked on The Mighty Boosh and opened the meeting by quoting lines from Bollo the gorilla to me,” Freeland said.
Edelstein said it “made sense to form the perfect marriage” between Freeland and Bevan and Fellner, who have co-chaired the company since 1992.
“We want to work with the best talent in the business and Mark will undoubtedly bring his own brand of creativity to the team as we continue to grow our international production business and look to develop more comedy series,” Edelstein added.
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