Bosses At Various Artists Talk Working With Jesse Armstrong In The Post-‘Succession’ Era, Teaming With A24 On ‘Such Brave Girls’ & The Return Of The Sitcom

EXCLUSIVE: Since being launched in 2017 by a quartet including Jesse Armstrong, Various Artists Limited (VAL) has made shows ranging from Michaela Coel‘s I May Destroy You to Julia Davis’ Sally 4Ever, but bosses now see the comedy landscape heading in a somewhat different direction.

Fresh off the back of Sunday’s BAFTA win for Kat Sadler’s BBC comedy Such Brave Girls, head honcho Phil Clarke and comedy boss Jack Bayles are talking up the return of the sitcom in a landscape beset by budget woes and risk aversion that is nonetheless continuing to birth breakouts.

“The word we are getting from broadcasters is they want more traditional sitcoms with ‘A, B, C’ storylines and bigger characters,” Bayles tells Deadline. “We’ve been through this amazing era of drama and people have got so used to seeing that scale and ambition but trying to compete with that in half-hour, lower-budget comedy is impossible. Instead, we can provide escapism, a connection and can reflect people’s lives back at them.”

Bayles cites the likes of hit BBC comedy Ghosts – “done with panache,” he says – or Channel 4‘s The Change, as prime examples of what British networks might be seeking in the near future.

Finding creatives to spawn sitcoms has become tricky following years of a comedy landscape that has been defined by auteur-driven shows and dramedies, Bayles says. “It doesn’t feel like there are as many of them as there were,” he adds. “Maybe people need to feel that shift or the messaging needs to float down.”

He goes on: “Sometimes big comic talents are scared of doing [more mainstream shows like sitcoms] due to fear of failure but for the overall health of the ecosystem you need these shows to make sure comedy is still celebrated as a discipline. There is a slight danger that if everything caters to different audiences then the thing as a whole can suffer.”

Bayles’ comments speak to the vision of BBC comedy head Jon Petrie, who told Deadline earlier this year upon the greenlight of a new Alan Partridge series that buyers in both the UK and U.S. are keen on sitcoms with a “high joke rate and relatable characters.”

Comedy production in the UK has been defined by a sharp rise in budgets of late, leading the likes of Petrie to bang the drum for a new comedy tax credit, and Bayles says the desire for sitcoms is also reflective of the tide slowly turning from the uber-high spending of recent years. This is no bad thing, he posits. “If you think of great British comedy through the years it has been very domestically focused, reflecting the lives of the people the BBC and Channel 4 are serving, and there is a feeling we need to move back in that direction in some way, which is positive.”

“For want of a better word,” Clarke, who commissioned the likes of Sharon Horgan’s Catastrophe and Coel’s Chewing Gum during a five-year tenure as Channel 4 comedy boss, says the British industry was “colonized” by U.S. streamers during the streaming boom, “and the ability to make a show has got more difficult financially.”

“Finding additional funding is a vexatious thing. It’s achievable and doable but it can make things longer and be frustrating for talent,” he says.

Not that Clarke and Bayles are complaining. An uptick of work over the past couple of years following the smash success of I May Destroy You, including an Apple TV+ series, Still Up, saw the company’s turnover skyrocket tenfold to £15M ($19M) for the year to March 31 2023, although more recent figures incorporating the U.S. writers strike and global recession period aren’t yet available. Second season greenlights for Such Brave Girls and another BAFTA nominee, Mawaan Rizwan’s Juice, have therefore been very welcome, and the team has another BBC comedy, Spentcreated by The Duchess star Michelle de Swarte, premiering over the summer. “We got very very busy,” says Clarke, who adds that the company has two “exciting” development projects in the works with different UK broadcasters.

BBC Studios has a 20% stake in VAL but the company remains small and operates as a traditional comic indie, leaning heavily towards a talent-first approach, Clarke and Bayles say.

This approach was their north star with Such Brave Girls, a buzzy BBC breakout that airs on Hulu in the U.S. and is distributed by A24. Following the angsty and sometimes excruciatingly cringey goings-on of the lives of two sisters, the show beat Big Boys, Dreaming Whilst Black and Extraordinary to take the coveted Scripted Comedy BAFTA at the TV Awards a few days ago, while Sadler, who stars alongside real-life sister Lizzie Davidson, won Best Writer at the BAFTA Crafts.

The show has garnered praise from critics for the way in which it addresses issues around mental health head-on, while having comedy and a bit of silliness at its heart. “I think there were shows in the past that tackled some of the same territory but they tended to be shade in a show that had light and shade,” adds Bayles. “Kat didn’t want to do that – this is her experience and she feels well placed to address the subject matter.”

A24 distributed half of the BAFTA Scripted Comedy nominees this year – it also sold Dreaming Whilst Black to Showtime – and Clarke says the indie powerhouse bought “impeccable taste” along with unprecedented levels of brand recognition.

When a package of A24 merch was sent to the set, Clarke jokes that he had “never seen such a bunfight, with crew tripping over themselves for hats and socks.”

The show has performed well enough on Hulu for the streamer to partner on Season 2 and Clarke and Bayles are confident in the company’s ability to make shows that can make a splash on both sides of the pond, after I May Destroy You landed with aplomb on both the BBC and HBO.

Legacy of Michaela Coel’s epic

Coel’s show is now almost four years old and the team are able to look back on its breakout success with a bit of distance. Based on her own experience of being sexually assaulted and punctuated with raw honesty, I May Destroy You was the only series created this decade to make the prestigious Broadcasting Press Guild’s list of the best TV shows of the past 50 years, which published several weeks back.

Does Clarke believe it changed the landscape?

“Yes and no,” he ponders. “There was certainly a moment when the likes of [the similarly honest and auteur-driven] I Hate Suzie came out and it felt like there was some sort of resonating theme, but then there was the Queen’s Gambit, or White Lotus, which were great shows in their own right.”

He adds: “It goes back to what is so great about artists finding their own voice and not adhering to the rules. That is what is so brilliant about Michaela’s writing.”

When plans for I May Destroy You were first gestating, Armstrong, who was one of four VAL co-founders alongside Clarke, Peep Show co-creator Sam Bain and Roberto Troni, suddenly became a tad preoccupied with Succession, the HBO smash that is likely now considered one of the shows of the millennia. When Armstrong landed Succession, Clarke recalls the auteur musing, “Oh, don’t worry I’m pretty sure it will only be one series,” and it went on to become what Clarke terms “one of the best television shows in the world.”

But the rollicking Shakespearean epic, which grabbed Matthew Macfadyen a BAFTA last week, is over and Armstrong finds himself with more time. Having been pretty absent from the day-to-day running of VAL in recent times, Clarke reveals Armstrong is now keen to exec produce its projects going forwards, with little having been mentioned so far of his post-Succession plans other than his repeatedly scotching the idea of a spin-off.

“He had a deal with HBO but is now up for exec-ing shows with VAL,” adds Clarke. “He’s back and remains creative director.”

Armstrong aside, the team has high hopes for its next project, Spent, which is part-based on de Swarte’s experience of the highs and lows of being a catwalk model. “For someone who’s had this extraordinary life, she’s got a real common touch,” says Bayles, bringing the conversation back to the need to appeal to the everyday viewer.

The likes of Spent, Juice and Such Brave Girls provide neat examples of VAL rigidly sticking to its talent-first mantra, and Bayles says this strategy negates a tendency to “over-analyze” the market.

“There can sometimes be a danger in trying to be really analytical about what it is you are trying to find,” he adds.

“Things that are put together with an outcome in mind don’t get that outcome because they feel too constructed. Instincts are underrated and the right people in the industry have the right instincts to sniff out a good idea, along with the nerve to commit.”