Hot Shots 2025: Louise Kentleton

Louise Kentleton had spent three years in radio comedy when she made a sharp pivot into US true-crime docs in 2019.

As a researcher on October Films’ Discovery ID series The Devil Among Us, she got her first taste of getting to grips with legal documents and handling access to people who had lost loved ones to murder.

Further researcher credits followed on October’s Secrets, Lives & Private Eyes and Arrow Media’s See No Evil, before she rose to assistant producer on Wag Entertainment’s Murdered for Revenge and Future Studios’ Real Time Crime.

Though it was true crime that brought her to Wonderhood Studios in November 2023, what started as a five-week funded development blossomed into a broader and more long-term development role.

“My start was a huge learning curve,” says Kentleton. “It was so fast-paced and the goals and parameters were new – I felt like I was re-learning everything I thought I knew about TV.”

Over 18 months, her doggedness in both fostering relationships with contributors and tracking down rare archive has been crucial to Wonderhood winning a trio of Channel 4 commissions: Poison, The Trial Of Michael Jackson and The Salisbury Poisonings.

“Nothing fazes Louise,” says Wonderhood director of development Tom Garton. We could not have built our recent slate of commissions without her hard work and dedication.”