Latest news with #TheOutlaws
BBC News
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Jon Petrie calls for producers to 'focus on the funny' as he warns that the opportunities for international investment for scripted comedy are becoming increasingly rare
Director of BBC Comedy Jon Petrie has warned that the opportunities for international investment to significantly plug the gap for scripted comedy are becoming increasingly rare. Speaking at the BBC Comedy Festival in Belfast, Jon said the TV comedy industry had been dazzled by the drama investment model, but the market reality meant that the period of Peak TV was unsustainable. Jon said: 'The opportunities for international investment to significantly plug the gap for scripted comedy are becoming increasingly rare. This might seem at odds with what I said back in 2022 about co-producing with our American friends. That door hasn't closed entirely - but it's always been narrower for comedy, and with a wider reset happening in our industry, we need to face reality head-on. 'We all got dazzled by the drama investment model - which was understandable, given the pace of change. Brilliant shows like The Outlaws and Starstruck showed what's possible when comedy attracts drama-level investment. I'm immensely proud of these shows. 'But let's be honest about the market reality – that period of Peak TV was unsustainable. Meanwhile, production costs have skyrocketed across the board, and pure comedy - the kind that defines the UK's cultural identity - simply doesn't command the same co-production interest as its glossier comedy-drama cousins.' He also pointed to research which shows that it is possible that award-winning, popular comedy can be made on a BBC budget alone. 'It's proven that popular, award-winning, comedy can be made on a BBC budget alone. The data backs up what we've always suspected - people connect with great characters and writing, not budget.' Jon said: 'We must constantly ask: 'Does this specific spend make it funnier?' We can't out-budget global streamers, but we can be smarter and funnier and speak to UK audiences more directly.' He highlighted recent successes for BBC Comedy including Gavin & Stacey: The Finale, which was the highest rated comedy since records began in 2002; Alma's Not Normal, which recently won a BAFTA for scripted comedy; Amandaland and Ludwig. And he asked producers and creatives to develop differently by thinking of cost from the moment of conception. 'And if we keep our comedy affordable and distinctive - we won't just weather this moment. We'll shape what comes next - and make it funnier, sharper, and unmistakably ours.' The BBC Director of Comedy, who has previously spoken about the importance of sitcoms, praised those who work in the scripted comedy TV industry for consistently finding brilliance even when resources were tight. 'Our focus now must be on channelling that resourcefulness smartly. Less about 'papering over cracks' and more about being strategically focused so we can make distinctive and more about being strategically focused so we can make distinctive, impactful comedy for the long haul.' 'Think about what people actually share online. The moments that go viral aren't expensive set pieces - they're laugh-out-loud writing and performances. Amandaland and Am I Being Unreasonable clips spread across social media week after week. The last Cunk special had a total of 185 million global views across our key social platforms. He committed to keep pushing for the comedy tax credit: 'We'll keep fighting for the comedy tax credit and working with the comedy community to make the economics stack up,' he said. 'But in the meantime, in every meeting with writers, producers, directors - the question has to be: does more money make it more funny? 'If it doesn't – it's not worth the spend. Because in the end, audiences watching comedy don't care how it was made. They care if it made them laugh. LH2
Miami Herald
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Why Stephen Merchant auctioned off his childhood ‘Star Wars' collection
By Filipa Gaspar Comedian Stephen Merchant's childhood "Star Wars" toys have been sold for more than £5,000 (over $6,000) to help raise money for a local school. Merchant, 50, was born in Hanham in Bristol and went on to co-write "The Office" and "Extras" with Ricky Gervais. His most recent work – the comedy drama series "The Outlaws" – was filmed in his hometown. Star Wars fans had the opportunity to purchase his childhood toys, with the funds going to a worthy cause. More than 30 lots of action figures and playsets went under the hammer at Auctioneum Ltd in Bristol on May 19. His Star Wars Collection was estimated to sell for between £300 and £500, but it fetched over £5,000. "An amazing out-of-this-world result," said auctioneer Andrew Stowe. All of the funds raised from the sale of Merchant's childhood toys are being donated to Ashton Park School, where his niece and nephew attend. They are raising funds to build a new outdoor covered space for lessons, activities and events. Merchant first saw "The Empire Strikes Back" at age six when it was released in cinemas, and it had a profound effect on him. It's where he fell in love with cinema. "Every child born in the seventies grew up with Star Wars around them," says Andrew, "but for some, the franchise had a greater effect." "We sell many childhood collections of toys, but when that child grew up to be one of the country's most recognizable stars, it really makes them special. ''These are no longer just 'toys', they're important social artefacts." One of the most sought-after lots from Merchant's collection was his original Millennium Falcon playset. "It's in remarkably good condition," says Andrew "Usually they are battered and bruised from flights around the living room – but Stephen clearly treasured this as it's complete and in good condition." The post Why Stephen Merchant auctioned off his childhood 'Star Wars' collection appeared first on Talker. Copyright Talker News. All Rights Reserved.
Irish Independent
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Emma Jane Unsworth's fizzy story of sisterly rivalry has shades of her TV collaborator Sharon Horgan
Slags combines the cheery nostalgia of Derry Girls with the rapid-fire humour of Fleabag Sisterly rivalry has long been a rich literary seam to mine, and for good reason. Take two women in the fullness of their chaotic, complex glory, add in a dark backstory and the ongoing competition that often happens between women that are close. It's been done before, certainly, but Emma Jane Unsworth has taken this dynamic, swept out the clichés and added plenty of fizz and salt to the trope. It's been five years since Unsworth published her third novel, Adults. It was, among other things, a brilliant and observant portrait of one woman and her social media presence. (A raw, yet highly readable memoir on postnatal depression, After The Storm, was published in 2022). In the years since Adults' came out, she has also turned her attention to screenwriting, co-writing the BBC comedy The Outlaws with Stephen Merchant in 2021. Two years later, she was the showrunner for Dreamland, Sharon Horgan's zippy Sky Atlantic comedy. The latter in particular appears to be a particularly fortuitous collaborator; when it comes to the sharp yet fun tone of their work, the two have much in common.
Korea Herald
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Interview: Ma Dong-seok trades criminals for demons
Korean action star discusses ghostbusting adventure 'Holy Night: Demon Hunters' and art of embracing typecasting Korean cinema has its own immovable object. Where Hollywood boasts Dwayne Johnson, South Korea counters with Ma Dong-seok — an actor whose boulder-like physique and jackhammer fists have become a bankable genre unto themselves. In an industry struggling to reclaim prepandemic viewership, Ma's fist-first persona has demonstrated remarkable resilience. His "Roundup" franchise — where Ma's blunt-force detective pulverizes criminal enterprises — has accumulated over 40 million admissions, with three consecutive installments since 2022 each surpassing the coveted 10 million threshold. "I've wanted to be a character actor like Jackie Chan since I was young," Ma explains, his massive frame barely fitting the chair in a cafe in Seoul. "Just as his every film becomes a 'Jackie Chan movie,' regardless of the role, I've accepted my films will carry that same signature." What casual viewers might not notice is that Ma, also known as Don Lee, isn't merely an action machine but a seasoned producer and creative force. Since co-developing 2017's "The Outlaws," which birthed the lucrative "The Roundup" franchise, Ma has constantly carved out his cinematic universe from behind the scenes. His latest venture, "Holy Night: Demon Hunters," opening Wednesday, represents his most ambitious conceptual departure yet — pivoting from crime-busting to occult showdown. "I've built an expansive fictional universe," Ma says. "I've mapped everything out with backstories and interconnections. What you see in the film is just a small part of it — the rest is being serialized in a prequel webtoon right now." More surprising still, "Holy Night" relegates Ma's typically outsized presence to secondary status. The film's intense exorcism sequences center on Sharon, played by Seohyun, with Ma's Bau serving primarily as her enforcer. This intentional repositioning reveals Ma's priorities. "I designed this film around the confrontation between Sharon and Eun-seo (the demon-possessed girl played with unsettling zeal by Jung Ji-so)" Ma explains. "My character just handles the peripheral threats — I'm essentially a sidekick. People might think otherwise because my face is plastered all over the marketing, but I wanted those two to be the stars." This approach requires a precarious balancing act: Ma must juggle between the shadow of exorcism genre tropes and the prototype of his own screen persona — the unstoppable force whose fists solve all problems. When asked about the film's stylistic choices, Ma admits they initially attempted bold departures before retreating to familiar ground. "We tried hard to avoid the familiar beats of exorcism films," he says. "But the more we veered away from those conventions, the stranger it became. So we had to circle back and maintain certain frameworks that audiences expect." Further complicating the picture is the action component. Most audiences flock to theaters looking for Ma's demolition job, yet fresh contexts demand innovation. Ma shares with surprising conviction that keeping his trademark style was a conscious choice rather than a creative liability. "There's going to be some deja vu, definitely," he admits. "When we were developing the script, I actually proposed playing a completely different character. But after discussions with everyone involved, we decided to keep the 'Ma Dong-seok character.' Since it's ultimately an action film with fantasy elements, we thought that's what people wanted." This self-awareness, however, seems to only add another layer to a film that operates as a funhouse of same-old elements — jumpscare horror, demonic possession complete with gibberish incantations and ritualistic interrogations, and bone-crunching beatings — all accelerating at dizzying speed. The real issue is less the structural familiarity than the textural incoherence. In its determination to spotlight exorcism elements while preserving Ma's trademark beatdowns, the narrative contorts itself unnaturally. Ma's character curiously avoids direct engagement with supernatural forces (that's almost entirely Sharon's jurisdiction) and instead focuses on pummeling Satanic cultists who exist solely as his human punching bags. As a result, the film's demonic horror and action sequences seem to compete for attention as parallel sideshows rather than blend organically. Credit where due: "Holy Night" does reach out for some novel elements. The extensive use of security camera footage, which Ma describes as "a way to ground fantastic elements in reality," provides found-footage framing that occasionally transcends mere contrivance. The comedy, too, quite frequently sticks the landing. But as expected from Korean cinema's knockout specialist, the action itself remains the film's most reliable element. And it is here where Ma most visibly reveals his sincere craftsmanship. "People may not notice, but I constantly analyze the physics of impact," he explains. "If I hit someone, how much should their head turn? Three-quarters, not all the way. How would the body realistically fall? Even with wire work for the fantasy elements, we carefully designed each impact for maximum catharsis." Ma's professional plate appears perpetually overloaded. Beyond his continued "Roundup" commitments (he confirms filming for the fifth installment will begin next year), he's currently shooting "Pig Village," a Hollywood-targeting project he's producing alongside his future Marvel obligations. He also runs a boxing gym where he trains regularly. Ma, however, is a person who thrives on restlessness. For him, each new project isn't a drain but a recharge that fuels his creative engine. "Acting consumes a lot of energy. Some people recharge by resting, but I recharge through productive work. Creating something — writing, developing ideas — actually fills me back up."
The Independent
23-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
This City Is Ours star James Nelson-Joyce: ‘I thought kids like me don't act'
When James Nelson-Joyce was in his first year of drama school, he was told that he'd better lose his accent because he wouldn't work much as a scouser. It's safe to say that he's since proved that assertion completely wrong by, well, working a lot as a scouser (and giving some indelible performances in the process). In a truly unsettling turn in Jimmy McGovern's 2021 drama Time, he played Johnno, the prison bully who tormented Sean Bean's character Mark Cobden; he was responsible for one of the show's most talked-about (read: harrowing) scenes, involving a bag of sugar, a kettle filled with boiling water and another inmate's face. He's also appeared in the Liverpool -set thriller The Responder, cropped up in Industry and played the bad guy in Stephen Merchant's comedy The Outlaws. Later this year, he'll star in the new season of Black Mirror. Few of these parts have been particularly breezy, to say the least; most are firmly situated on the wrong 'un end of the character spectrum. And Nelson-Joyce is so convincing in those roles that I'm half expecting some spiky version of one of them to come through the doors of the coffee shop where we meet, just around the corner from Liverpool's main shopping street. Off screen, though, he couldn't seem further from that persona. 'You know what, everyone comes up to me and says, 'you were horrible in that' or, 'I was scared to come over',' he laughs, shaking his head. The 35-year-old grew up in Walton, in the north of the city, and has recently arrived back after a stint in London promoting A Thousand Blows, the brutal, propulsive drama about East End bare knuckle boxers, written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight. It was his first proper period piece (and required some proper period sideburns). Stepping onto the hyper-realistic Victorian set made him feel 'like a kid in a candy shop, [thinking] 'I'm not supposed to be doing this!''. In the show, Nelson-Joyce plays Treacle, younger brother to ageing prize fighter Henry 'Sugar' Goodson, played by his offscreen friend and mentor Stephen Graham (he does a pretty good rendition of the actor, who's from nearby Kirkby, phoning him up to give him a quick rundown of the role). For this one, both Liverpudlians played cockneys – and faced off in some truly wrenching scenes, emotionally and physically. 'We trust each other, and that brotherly chemistry was there for free,' says Nelson-Joyce. 'Me and Stephen are both open books. But men in that age were very stoic, they didn't really talk about problems or issues. They still don't now, do they, really?' His next big project sees him back on home turf, taking the lead role in the BBC's sweeping new crime drama This City Is Ours alongside his Time co-star Bean ('working with Sean, honestly, it's a doddle'). Nelson-Joyce plays Michael, a drug dealer and protégé of organised crime boss Ronnie (Bean). The two have a twisted father-son dynamic, the older man a sort of 'surrogate father' to the younger, despite his having 'kind of groomed Michael' into a life of crime. As the series opens, Bean's character is looking to retire to his sprawling house on the Wirral, on the other side of the Mersey, and to hand over the business to Michael. But Ronnie's real son, Jamie (Jack McMullen), isn't happy with this succession plan, and the power struggle that ensues is a brutal one. And in counterpoint to all those machinations, we also see Michael trying to start a family with his girlfriend Diana (Hannah Onslow), with the couple going through fertility treatment. Nelson-Joyce is one of those actors who can slip from vulnerability to violence, and vice versa, with disconcerting speed; it's a role that certainly makes good use of that knack. The story held his attention from the off. 'I'm dyslexic, so when it comes to me getting scripts in, I usually have to read 10, 15 pages, put it down and come back to it, just because I lose concentration,' Nelson-Joyce says. 'I don't know if that's a bit of ADHD as well. But I genuinely read all three episodes [sent over] in the space of three and a half hours, four hours. It [was] a page-turner, and I remember thinking to myself, 'I'm not letting anyone else play this character'.' Although, he admits, a touch of imposter syndrome still crept in, with a voice in his head telling him: 'They're gonna want someone really famous for this' or 'I haven't got that profile that a lot of actors have'. His first scene on location in Liverpool was filmed round the corner from his old flat; another was near his school, and 'when we were doing stuff on the street, I'd have mates walking past, or family members. It was a bit weird, but I loved it'. It's a telegenic place – not for nothing is Liverpool the second most-filmed city in the UK, outside of London – but it looks especially good in this series. 'I just want to show the city off as much as I can,' he says, 'and, whenever I can, to use my accent in a project'. He sees Michael as someone who, 'if he was given the opportunities', would thrive on a more legitimate path. 'I think that's the case for a lot of people. We all need an opportunity. And I'm fortunate that I got mine.' Growing up, Nelson-Joyce describes himself as 'not the cleverest kid in school', a 'bit of a class clown'. He 'wanted to be a footballer, wasn't good enough' (he's a Liverpool fan; when his phone rings, it does so to the strains of Gerry and the Pacemakers) but he used to 'put accents on' while reading in his English class, to get his teacher's attention. She put him forward to do a speaking and listening exam and suggested that he pursue acting. 'And I thought, 'kids like me don't act.'' When he went to college – 'God, I was at that college for five years… I was a nuisance!' – he started watching the work of local actors like Graham and Pete Postlethwaite and realised: 'People from my walk of life do this.' His parents, he says, were 'made up' when he decided to take acting seriously and try out for drama school. 'As long as I wasn't up to no good… It was never like, 'you can't do that, you've got to get a proper job'. And anyone who knows me knows you can't say that to me anyway, because I'm stubborn.' But if it wasn't for a chance meeting with Graham more than a decade ago, Nelson-Joyce says, 'I don't know where I'd be'. They crossed paths not in a rehearsal room or on a set, but in a London branch of Nando's. Nelson-Joyce was fresh out of drama school and had 'just come out of an audition' – and when he saw Graham, 'the reason why I got into acting', having dinner with his wife (fellow actor Hannah Walters), he 'thought, 'you know what, f*** it, I'll go over and say hello''. He ended up chatting to them about his ambitions (and taking a selfie), before leaving the couple to their peri-peri. Later, 'Hannah comes over and she says, 'There's something about you. Here's my email. If you're ever in anything, or you're ever on the telly, just send me an email and we'll watch it.'' But when he ended up getting 'bit parts' in Casualty and Shameless, he was 'too embarrassed' to take Walters up on that: 'Oh I'm on telly tonight, with my two lines,' he jokes, imagining his email. A few years passed, and Nelson-Joyce was cast as a gang member in Little Boy Blue, the drama based on the murder of Rhys Jones, the 11-year-old boy caught in the crossfire while walking home from football practice in Liverpool in 2007. Graham had signed up to play the police officer tasked with bringing the killer to justice. The weight of this real-life story inevitably hung over the cast, so Nelson-Joyce was glad to see a familiar face at the first table read. 'I just felt these eyes burning in my head, and I look up and it's Stephen. And he just goes, 'are you that lad from Nando's? Boss that, lad!'' Graham was impressed with how Nelson-Joyce handled the role and recommended him to his agent. He doesn't hold back when it comes to praising the support that the older actor has provided since. 'He's put me in front of so many doors and helped me open them. OK, I've had to work, and I've worked hard, but [Graham] is a bit of a saving grace for working-class actors.' He cites the recent statistic that only eight per cent of people in television and film are from a working-class background. 'It's not good enough. And then you've got drama schools charging an arm and a leg even to audition. It's just harder. I think Stephen and Hannah realise that they have a platform and they can create opportunities.' He tries to follow their example now when he works with younger actors ('I sound like a w***** saying this,' he caveats) because 'I know how important it is to get that opportunity, even if it's just to ask for advice: to say, how do I get into this industry? What do I wear to an audition?' He recalls how, before an audition for Shameless, he was told by a teacher to 'go wearing smart clothes – for Shameless!' he says, eyebrows raised. When he arrived, he ended up talking to the casting director about Shakespeare, 'saying all the right things. And he let me waffle along for a couple of minutes, then he goes, 'you're lying! Just make yourself at home.'' It taught him, he says, that he didn't actually have to pretend to be some idealised version of a drama student in order to succeed. 'That's the thing. There's only ever one of you. There's such pressure to be like, 'I have to be an actor '. It's all b*****ks. Be yourself.'
