Meet the Speakers: Murray Boland

Next month we will be returning to Covent Garden in London, for the latest in our long-running series of TV Networking events, offering a chance to hear from the top programme-makers behind some of the UK’s biggest shows.

On Thursday 11th April we will be joined by CPL Productions’ Creative Director, Murray Boland, who will be taking us behind the scenes of two of the company’s most significant recent commissions: Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds and The Restaurant That Makes Mistakes.

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Meet The Speakers: Susanne Curran & Jenny Ash

Next month we will be returning to London’s Covent Garden, for the latest in our long-running series of TV Networking events, giving you the chance to hear from some the UK’s top programme-makers!

On Thursday 11th April we will be joined by Burning Bright’s Head of Factual, Susanne Curran, and Director, Jenny Ash, who will be discussing the making of Channel 4’s 100 Vaginas.

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Meet The Speakers: Amelia Brown

Next month we will be returning to The Hospital Club, for the latest in our long-running series of TV Networking events. On Thursday 28th February we will be joined by Amelia Brown, Managing Director of Thames Television, who will be discussing the making of BBC One’s new Saturday night sensation, The Greatest Dancer.

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Meet The Speakers: Derek McLean

Next month we will be returning to The Hospital Club, for the latest in our long-running series of TV Networking events. On Thursday 11th October we will be joined by Derek McLean, Managing Director of Bandicoot TV, who will be discussing his career to date.

Derek McLean

Derek’s first job after graduating from university was working as a lawyer in America on the infamous Death Row, a job he believes gave him a “grounding for a career in television”.

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Meet The Speakers: Neil Crombie

Next month we will be returning to The Hospital Club, for the latest in our long-running series of TV Networking events. On Thursday 11th October we will be joined by Neil Crombie, who will be discussing the series of documentaries he has worked on with artist Grayson Perry.

Neil Crombie

Neil Crombie is both the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Swan Films, where he works across all of the company’s productions. He has extensive credits as a Director, Producer and Executive Producer, and is a double BAFTA-winner. Aside from his work with Perry, Neil’s credits include Executive Producer on the landmark six-part series American High School. In 2015 Neil was nominated for Best Factual Director at the BAFTA Craft Awards.

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Meet The Speakers: Clare Pizey & Alex Renton

Next week we will be returning to The Hospital Club, for the latest in our long-running series of TV Networking events. On Thursday 6th September we will be joined by Clare Pizey and Alex Renton, the executive producer and series producer from the nation’s favourite motoring TV series, Top Gear, who will discuss rebooting one the BBC’s biggest global brands. We’ll also be joined on the night by legendary producer Graham Stuart, discussing his work on one of the UK’s best loved prime-time chat shows, The Graham Norton Show.

Clare Pizey
Pizey joined Top Gear as the head of editorial content in 2016, heading up the reboot after the departure of the long running presenting trio of Hammond, Clarkson and May. At the time, she had been with the BBC for seven years working as the Head of Factual Entertainment. Her credits include Children in Need and Sport Relief.

Alex Renton
Alex Renton is best known for his work on Top Gear, Clarkson: Thriller and Clarkson: Duel. Renton has worked on the Top Gear brand for over a decade, joining on series 5, and filling various roles across the production.

Top Gear
The original Top Gear launched in 1977 and was only available on BBC1 Midlands. The 30 minute programme discussed common motoring issues such as holiday touring, insurance and fuel economy. The original Top Gear ran for 24 years, before being relaunched in 2002 with a new format featuring races, celebrities and the studio setting that we have come to know and love.

The Reboot
After the well publicised departure of the show’s presenters, the format was again relaunched in 2016, with a new group of presenters, and host of new segments and features. Although the reboot boasted original and exciting changes, as Renton stated in a 2017 BBC interview, the car is still the foundation. “The programme starts from the car – always, always. We build from that. We combine all the different ingredients and we have got great ambitions.”

And, of course in a trailer that can only be described as quintessentially British, one of those key ingredients is milk.

Give Your Networking Horse Power
So, what does it take to pull off a successful reboot of a globally recognised brand? For a chance to find out first-hand how the duo put the show firmly back into top gear join us on the 6th September at The Hospital Club. For more information and to book your free place, click here.

Meet The Speakers: Lisa Clark

Meet The Speakers: Lisa Clark

We return to The Hospital Club later this week for the latest in our long-running series of TV Networking events, featuring top programme-makers from across the industry. Along with Label 1’s Simon Dickson, we’ll be joined this time around by legendary comedy producer, Lisa Clark, who along with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, co-founded award-winning company Pett Productions.

Lisa Clark
Lisa has been producing entertainment and comedy shows for over 25 years – from the iconic The Big Breakfast in 1992 and the multi-award-winning live Saturday night show Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, to the ground-breaking panel show Shooting Stars in the early 00s and, most recently the critically acclaimed sitcom Vic & Bob’s House Of Fools.

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Meet The Speakers: Simon Dickson, Label 1

Meet The Speakers: Simon Dickson, Label 1

We are fast approaching our next TV Networking event, taking place on Thursday 8th February at Covent Garden’s Hospital Club. For the February Edition we’re delighted to be hosting Label 1 Co-Founder and Creative Director, Simon Dickson.

Simon Dickson
Widely regarded as one of the industry’s most prominent and captivating creative thinkers, Dickinson has a reputation for approaching mainstream factual subjects from a unique perspective.

BAFTA-nominated for Discovery/Channel 4’s The Plane Crash, his credits include titles such as Bear Grylls’ Wild Weekends, along with multi-camera ‘rig’ shows One Born Every Minute and The Hotel, both of which he commissioned when he was head documentaries at Channel 4.

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Jamie: From Screen To Stage

We had another packed house at The Hospital Club last night for our latest ProductionBase TV Networking evening – a huge thank you to everyone that joined us on the night, as well as our great guest speakers.

We were joined on stage by Jamie Campbell, the inspiration for the West End’s newest hit musical, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, which opened at The Apollo Theatre earlier this month to rave reviews. The show is based on Jamie’s story, as a 16-year-old boy from a council estate in the North-East who wants to wear a dress to his end-of-year school prom, and the BBC Three documentary that followed his progress.

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Meet The Speakers: Karl Warner, Jes Wilkins & Jamie Campbell

Meet The Speakers: Karl Warner, Jes Wilkins & Jamie Campbell

With just over a week to go until our latest TV Networking event at The Hospital Club, we profile our latest group of top industry speakers, who’ll take us behind the scenes of their hit shows.

Karl Warner
Our first speaker for the November edition, taking place on Tuesday 14th, is Electric Ray Founder, Karl Warner, revealing the secrets behind this autumn’s latest high-concept reality show, Bromans.

Karl is now running Electric Ray, his own production company and home to E4’s Carjackers and BBC’s Prized Apart. Before launching the company he was a Commissioning Editor at the BBC, where he was involved in the development of hit shows including Strictly Come Dancing.

He also held senior roles at Endemol, where his credits included Big Brother and Soccer Aid, as well as a number of other independent production companies.

Karl is credited on a range of other shows, such as Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, Russell Howard’s Good News, Junior Doctors, Back Chat with Jack Whitehall, Live at the Apollo and The Undercover Princes, winning him numerous awards and breaking ratings records in a variety of genres along the way.

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