Marks and Gran get moving with LocomoTV

This week saw the announcement of a new creative company built around the writing talents of Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, two of the most iconic names in the British TV business. Backed by FremantleMedia, the new company will see Marks and Gran team up with indie producer Corona Television in a JV called LocomoTV.

According to a press announcement, “the new company will create original scripted programming that will captivate a new generation of audiences all over the world. LocomoTV is already building up a head of steam with a number of projects in development.”

For those not familiar with Marks and Gran, they first began writing for television more than 35 years ago and have an enviable body of hits in both comedy and drama, including Holding the Fort, Shine on Harvey Moon, The New Statesman, Love Hurts and Goodnight Sweetheart.

The pair also created Birds of a Feather, a classic comedy show that returned to UK TV screens in January 2014 after a 16-year absence. The revival launched to 12 million viewers, becoming ITV’s biggest comedy hit in 20 years and confirming that Marks and Gran still have the Midas touch.

FremantleMedia’s involvement is a no-brainer. FM already has a stake in Corona Television and has the rights to much of Marks and Gran’s back catalogue following a series of previous acquisitions. FM says it will “work with the new company on development and has a first look to distribute any titles originated by LocomoTV.”

For Marks and Gran, the new set-up recalls an earlier stage of their TV life: “One of the most rewarding phases of our career was when we had our own company, Alomo, in partnership with Allan McKeown, a brilliant, dynamic and forceful executive. We feel a similar frisson in getting together with the ambitious and enthusiastic production pairing of Richard Johns and Rupert Jermyn (the co-CEOs of Corona). We still generate far too many ideas for new projects, so we couldn’t ignore the opportunity to team up with the Corona boys and bring some extra fizz to TV.”

As for Johns and Jermyn, they said: “Decades of success have not blunted one little bit Marks and Gran’s appetite to bring compelling, deeply human stories and characters to audiences in the UK and worldwide. Lo and Mo’s ability to deliver an emotional and dramatic reach to the broadest audiences, across all the ages, classes and the sexes, is unrivalled in contemporary British TV and is frankly pretty unique worldwide. It is testament to their deep understanding of the human condition and their skill in finding fresh and compelling ways to highlight aspects of it to audiences.”

Another British screenwriting star has also been in the news this week. Red Planet Pictures’ Tony Jordan is to write Stop! In the Name of Love, following 18 months of development. A four-hour Motown drama series for the BBC, it centres on “six smart, diverse 30-something women in contemporary England. The series will reflect the diversity of today’s UK, focusing on the women’s complicated lives as they deal with love, friendship, success and failure. The music of Berry Gordy Jr’s famous record label will be woven into each drama, with characters singing songs at key moments within the spoken narrative. Each song (five per episode) will express the situation and emotions of the characters and be integral to the drama.”

According to Jordan, “Stop! In the Name of Love offers something completely different from any other show on television and I am delighted that the BBC has commissioned it. We’ve been developing the series for the past 18 months and have created a piece of drama that will be unmissable event TV and that truly reflects the multicultural world we’ve become. The music of Motown is iconic and mirrors the rich gamut of human emotion and experience, as well as exploring universal themes that all cultures and ages can relate to. The musical arrangements and cutting edge choreography will give us a uniquely modern take.”

Jordan, who learned his craft by writing more than 250 episodes of BBC soap EastEnders, has become one of the most innovative and important writers in the British TV business. Leaving aside the fact that his company created a high-profile competition for new screenwriting talent, he has written and produced a number of ground-breaking shows in his time. Examples include Life on Mars, Hustle, By Any Means and his own unique look at the biblical story in The Nativity.

Always experimental, he created the ingenious ITV double-header Echo Beach and Moving Wallpaper and is now developing a show called Dickensian, which imagines a Victorian London populated by some of Charles Dickens’ most-loved characters including Scrooge, Fagin and Miss Havisham.

In 2013, the Guardian said: “If it were not for snobbery surrounding soap operas, Tony Jordan’s name would be as celebrated as Stephen Poliakoff’s.” A couple of years on, it’s unlikely anyone could find a legitimate reason not to recognise Jordan’s creative impact.

An interesting story from the US this week, meanwhile, is that filmmaker Daniel Barnz has signed up as writer/director of Valentina, ABC Family’s planned adaptation of RCTV telenovela My Gorda Bella Valentina. Described as Revenge meets Ugly Betty, it tells the story of a young girl called Valentina whose rich mother is killed in an accident. When the mother’s family takes over her assets, Valentina realises that her mother might have been murdered by her family for control of her business. So she disappears and returns 10 years later, looking totally different and hell-bent on revenge.

Barnz’s major credits to date include Beastly, Phoebe in Wonderland and Cake, the 2014 movie in which Jennifer Aniston plays a woman who becomes fascinated by the suicide of another woman in her chronic-pain support group. Presumably Barnz has come on board hoping he can achieve the same kind of breakthrough as RCTV recently had with fellow telenovela adaptation Jane the Virgin (a hit for CW in the US).

One connection with that show is RCTV International’s Jorge Granier, who is executive producer on both productions. TV is not completely new for Barnz, who is looked after by uber-agency WME. Earlier this year he directed ABC comedy drama pilot Mix.

tagged in: Corona Television, Daniel Barnz, Jorge Granier, Laurence Marks, LocomoTV, Marks and Gran, Maurice Gran, Red Planet Pictures, Richard Johns, Rupert Jermyn, Stop! In the Name of Love, Tony Jordan, Valentina