An independent production and distribution company co‑founded and led by Jimmy Mulville with offices in London and Belfast. Established with the principle of putting writers first, we continue to nurture both new and established creative talent.
INTRODUCING THE TEAM
Jimmy Mulville
Managing Director
Jimmy was one of the founders of Hat Trick Productions in 1986 and since then has seen it grow into one of the country’s leading producers of comedy, drama and entertainment, regularly bringing to the screen distinctive and popular series. In the US Hat Trick launched ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway’ in 1997 which ran on ABC for seven years and was the very first British series to be recreated for American network television by a British producer. In 1999 he received the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Creative Contribution to Television. Jimmy is a Fellow of the Royal Television Society and recently received an honorary doctorate from the University of Liverpool. Before moving to television in 1982, he produced for BBC Radio, where he developed and produced the award-winning Radio Active.Will Bradbury
Development Researcher, Hat Trick Lab
Having already binned off career prospects including rock star, food influencer and brain surgeon, Will has turned to television to ensure his smorgasbord of interests get turned into something bingeable.
After growing up in Hong-Kong, Will moved to London to study at KCL, with a brief stint in Oxford in between. Since graduating, he has worked between music and film – for Rough Trade and as a producer, sound designer and videographer. He still promotes gigs across the capital and runs two record labels but spends most of his time at the cutting-edge as the Lab’s deck consultant and highly trained ears.
He identifies as an AI-sceptic, as whilst he is excited about its possibilities for the development of quality entertainment, he has yet to see a way it can enhance the joys of cricket.
Claire Broughton
Head of Podcasts
Claire Broughton is Head of Podcasts at Hat Trick Productions. Past productions include ‘Zoetrope’ (feat. Daisy Ridley for Audible), ‘London Pub Reviews’ (feat. Tim Key), ‘Hypothetical – The Podcast’ (feat. Josh Widdicombe and James Acaster for UKTV), ‘Queen Bees with Jane Horrocks and Esther Coles’, ‘Twice Upon A Time with Janet Ellis’, ‘Whistle Through The Shamrocks’ (feat. Nicola Coughlan) and more.
She has previously worked across film, TV and radio on titles such as Episodes, The Armstrong and Miller Show, Plum House, The Constant Gardener, Black Books and Spaced.
The pinnacle (and end) of her acting career was appearing as a zombie in ‘Shaun of the Dead’.
Sarah Brown
Business Affairs Assistant
Sarah joined Hat Trick in 1997 after working in the mundane worlds of insurance, surveying and banking. The more exciting world of tv beckoned and has held her interest for all these years. Sarah works alongside the lawyers and is across pretty much everything that happens in the Business Affairs Department (and, it has been said, the glue that holds the team together).
When she isn’t drafting and chasing (they call it nagging…) contracts/invoices etc., she likes to spend her spare time being a crazy yoga/dog lady.
Katie Burgess
Group HR Manager
Katie is our Group HR Manager who works across all of Hat Trick’s group companies. She started her career as a production assistant and made the move to HR where she has worked across several industries including Fintech, Film distribution and TV. She comes from a generalist HR background and is responsible for the employee lifecycle at Hat Trick.
Outside of work you can find Katie next door at Triyoga or at home glued to the latest reality TV series.
Paul Cohen
Group Commercial Director
Paul oversees legal, commercial, rights and focuses on financing and co-production for high-end productions. He is also responsible for corporate and business development. He contributes to various industry bodies and spent six years on Pact Council including two as Vice-Chair. He is also a trustee of the Camden People’s Theatre.
Paul trained as a solicitor working in London and Sydney before making the not very difficult decision to leave the world of mining patent litigation for the bright lights of television.
Nick Coupe
Development Producer (Scripted)
Nick is a scripted comedy producer. For Hat Trick, his credits include: Stuck for BBC2 starring Dylan Moran and Morgana Robinson; Birdsong for BBC3 written by Uncle Shortbread; Nora Meadows’ Week Of Wellness for BBC Sounds with Katy Wix; and three series of the chart-topping podcast London Pub Reviews with Tim Key.
Before Hat Trick, Nick worked in audio, producing various award winning (and losing) radio shows and podcasts with comedians like Jamali Maddix and Jacob Hawley. Before that, he worked in production management in TV and film. Before that, he worked in an actors’ agency, and before that, he was a child.
Laura Djanogly
Director of Production
Laura started her working life at 16 as a junior secretary at Chelsea Football Club, then into the music industry. A brief stint on The Pretenders’ world tour lead to a decade of travelling interspersed with freelance production manager roles on a variety of comedy, entertainment and travel & arts documentary series.
Such mundanity couldn’t last though and Laura headed to the razzamatazz of a desk-bound job as Programme Finance Manager at Channel 4 before joining Hat Trick in 2001 as Head of Production. Laura and Jessica Sharkey joined forces in 2004, and although they now look after their own individual slates, combined they continue to steer all of Hat Trick’s shows through from start to finish.
Laura claims she can’t do without Jessica. Jessica was unavailable for comment.
Andy Dugdale
Finance Director
Andy is responsible for all areas of financial management and governance across the group. He has been at Hat Trick for over ten years and is most often found in his natural habitat of the excel spreadsheet, where he is a big fan of adding, but prefers not to subtract.
A keen cricket fan, his work colleagues have learnt over the years not to engage him in conversation during the summer months.
Walt Dunphy
Rights Accountant
Walt works in the Finance department at Hat Trick and in a previous life worked in Music Publishing.
When he’s not being disappointed by a team from the red half of North London he enjoys a day at the cricket and city breaks when global pandemics decide to have a year off.
Suzie Edmunds
Production Manager
Suzie has been at Hat Trick since 2015, coming from a film background as a Producers assistant, she started as the HOPs team assistant and has worked her way up to JPM.
She helps to set up all the productions alongside Laura Djanogly, Jessica Sharkey and Georgia Hogan, as well as looking after in-house development projects, tasters and pilots.
Quite simply if you have a Production question she is your go to. And if you like dogs, she often has her furry mate Ziggy sitting beside her who is very keen on cuddles and chin scratches.
Emily Field
Junior Accounts Assistant
Emily works as Junior Accounts Assistant for productions across Hat Trick and Livewire. Her responsibilities include inputting invoices, posting payments and reconciling bank accounts.
Her claim to fame was a brief appearance as an extra on EastEnders, before realising that she was better off working in front of a screen than appearing on one! Leaving her acting career to die, she graduated from University of Portsmouth with a BA in Film Production, before joining Hat Trick in July 2022.
Adam Freeman
Head of Production - Finance
Adam started out as a trainee on a low budget soap, via a brief spell at the BBC, several years of freelancing on dramas and a super-long stint at a super-sized indie, arrived at Hat Trick in 2021
He looks after all areas of production finance across Hat Trick, HTM and Livewire.
Louise Gallagher
Development Executive (Belfast, Scripted Comedy & Drama)
Louise started her career at the BBC in Belfast working in production across Radio, TV and Online services.
She flew the BBC nest and started working on independent shorts and features, producing her first feature film, A Bump Along The Way, in 2018.
She joined Hat Trick at the start of 2020 to run their most westerly outpost in Belfast, seeking out new and exciting projects from across Ireland.
Jasmine Glen
Production Team Assistant
Jasmine is our Production Team Assistant, supporting our very busy In-House Production Team. She provides administrative support across development run throughs, pilots and taster tapes, as well as helping to digitise company archive. She joined Hat Trick in April 2022 from a career in Compliance for her first role in the much more exciting world of TV.
In her spare time, you can find Jasmine at a bottomless brunch or binge-watching the latest comedy series.
Adam Hannigan
Scripted Comedy Assistant
Adam is an award-winning comedy writer who in his spare time runs his own theatre company. He has an extensive background in hospitality, dealing with all the lovely Karen’s of the world. If at first, you don’t understand him it’s because his Irish diction is terrible so don’t be afraid to ask him to repeat. He doesn’t like to take himself too seriously because that’s what comedy is all about. He is very eager to learn all aspects of the industry so is thrilled to be a part of Hat Trick.
Georgia Hogan
Production Executive
Georgia Hogan started at Hat Trick in January 2021 as Production Executive and works across the full range of Hat Trick Group productions, mainly on our scripted content with Jessica Sharkey.
Previously Georgia was a freelance Line Producer on scripted productions from Comedy to Period Drama for Netflix, Apple, Hulu, BBC, ITV and E4.
Jonathan Hughes
Senior Technical Edit Assistant
Originally from Manchester, Jonny moved to London to pursue a career in Post Production after studying Film & television Production at Uni. A lover of all things Film and TV related, he can be found ingesting, exporting and helping tackle the many challenges that Avid Media Composer brings to a Post House.
Anna Johnston
Production Coordinator
Anna works in our in-house production department, supporting all of our shows on their journey from development through to delivery.
She started at Hat Trick in 2019 after graduating from Bournemouth University with a BA in Media Production, including a rather chilly semester in the Norwegian mountains.
When she’s not busy maintaining her title as the dark horse of development run-throughs, Anna enjoys frequenting the London musical theatre scene and attempting to recruit people for karaoke.
Chris Jones
Development Producer (Scripted)
Chris started his career working in production on some of the UK’s biggest scripted comedies such as The IT Crowd, PhoneShop, detectorists, Birds of a Feather, People Just Do Nothing and Motherland before coming in-house at Hat Trick.
While at Hat Trick Chris has developed and produced Smoggie Queens, as well as producing Kate & Koji starring Brenda Blethyn, Diane Chorley’s Chatting with Chorley and Whistle Through The Shamrocks written by Nicola Coughlan and Camilla Whitehill.
With a passion for comedy and storytelling, he moved into development where he has a focus on scripted comedy and comedy drama.
Because ‘what is free time?!’, Chris used to have a monthly column in Gay Times Magazine and more recently he’s written for Radio Times, Attitude and GQ.
Chinwe Joseph-Emile
Head of Rights – Finance
Chinwe is a Rights Accountant for the Hat Trick group, working closely with the sales (Hat Trick International) and the legal team to produce royalty statements that adhere to contractual obligations. She’s worked in finance in other Media companies before joining Hat Trick in 2016. When she is not at her desk, she enjoys dancing – especially Ceroc.
Suellen Juvenato
Management Accountant for Productions
Suellen is our Management Accountant for Productions. Coming from Brazil, she is always on the hunt for a Brazilian BBQ and transforms into a mad football hooligan every 4 years. In her spare time, you can spot her hiking Box Hill, perfecting her Samba dance, or pretending Brighton Beach is Ipanema.
Rebecca Kerley
Production Executive (Maternity Cover)
Rebecca Kerley joined Hat Trick in June 2023 as maternity cover for Georgia Hogan.
Prior to that she was HOP at Merman from June 2019 working across all comedy and drama output including Bad Sisters, Dreamland, Motherland, There She Goes, This Way Up and Frank of Ireland.
Rebecca started her career at the BBC where she worked her way up from Production Secretary to Line Producer on Comedy and Entertainment shows including Ab Fab, Top of the Pops, Comic Relief, That Mitchell and Webb look and How do you solve a problem like Maria. Leaving the BBC in 2015 Rebecca worked as a freelance Line Producer on This Time with Alan Partridge, TFI Friday, Murder in Successville and Inside No.9 Live.
Lillie King
Production Executive (Maternity Leave)
Lillie started at Hat Trick in July 2021 as Production Executive maternity cover and they’ve not been able to get rid of her since. She works across scripted comedy and high end drama for Hat Trick and HTM Television.
She started her career in 2010, with her first freelance job on Big Brother before moving to work on scripted shows such as EastEnders, Death in Paradise and Episodes. In 2016, Lillie moved to an in-house role at Kudos working across their high end drama and comedy, which is where she stayed until joining the Hat Trick team.
When she’s not making budgets, you can usually find her pretending to be cool at a festival like Glastonbury and unashamedly listening to a lot of Taylor Swift.
Dan Lee
POST PRODUCTION ASSISTANT MANAGER
Dan Lee is the Assistant Manager for our Post Production department. In short this means he spends his life googling and running around trying to fix Avid Media Composer problems. Thanks, Avid.
Isabelle Martin
Assistant Production Accountant
After impressing the team with her work via the Screenskills training program. Issy was able to secure a fulltime role working as a junior prod accountant. In her spare time, she enjoys going to the cinema!
Jonny McCausland
Development Lead, Hat Trick Lab
Jonny heads up the Hat Trick Lab, a new development team with a focus on cross-medium storytelling and a goal to explore how emerging technologies can be used to tell unheard stories.
He has worked across theatre, opera, arthouse film, and TV, and has a masters in Creative Business from the National Film and Television School.
Jonny loves to explore areas where genres and mediums blend, and he has recently become a leading voice on best practice for the integration of AI into the creative process – he would like to stress that this bio was not written by ChatGPT.
Malena McFarlane
Office and Facilities Manager
Malena is the facilities manager for our London offices.
As well as covering our day to day office management, Malena’s team offers operational support to all productions within the Hat Trick Group and also oversees a wide range of company events and all things Health and Safety.
In her spare time, you can find Malena with a glass of champagne at brunch, though she is keen to stress never when administering first aid or running fire drills.
Malena also runs our work experience and runners support programs.
Kafi Mohamoud
IT Support Analyst
I started my IT career as an apprentice working in a global architect practise providing 1st & 2nd line end-user support.
Hobbies include football , I love going to games to watch Arsenal play & having a kick about with my mates.
Kelly Mulcair
Financial Controller
Kelly has enjoyed a 10 year + career in Hat Trick’s Finance Department, and has had the opportunity to work across the majority of Hat Trick’s Group companies.
Now overseeing the Corporate Finance for Hat Trick and providing financial support including management accounting, statutory reporting, cash flow management, and forecasting.
As well as having a passion for TV, when stepping away from her calculator she is a foodie, plant lover, big music fan and choir member.
Tristan Nardini
Accountant (Non Scripted)
Tristan Nardini provides financial day to day support as well as cost reports, the management of accounts, and forecasting.
Valerie Okotume
Production Accountant
Valerie joined Hat Trick Productions in March 2019 as an assistant account and is now our in-house production accountant. Her role includes financial tasks such as cost reporting and payroll.
Outside of work she enjoys spending time with family & friends or booking her next holiday!
Rafal Osypiuk
Company Driver
Síle Parkinson
Assistant to Paul Cohen, Kate Wilson, Richard Wilson and Andy Dugdale
Síle joined Hat Trick in 2005, originally from Co. Limerick in Ireland she can watch Derry Girls and Father Ted without the need for subtitles.
She has worked in many industries including Retail, Architecture, Law, Medical and even fruit picking in Australia, before settling in to the exciting world of TV.
George Pericleous
Post Production Manager
George is our in-house Post Production Manager and oversees the day-to-day management of production teams, assistants, and editors.
As well as offering in-house productions 10 offline suites, 5 remote edit suites, 1 online suite and an audio mixing room, George also helps manage the companies post productions scheduling and workflow creation from pre-production all the way through to final delivery.
George also works closely with Armen, our Head of Technology, to make sure Hat Trick Post is at the forefront of ever-changing trends in Post.
Selina Peterson-Marchant
Receptionist & Facilities Assistant
Selina has been working at Hat Trick since 2008 looking after Front of House and providing support to Office Management & the facilities team.
Selina is also a Fire Warden and First Aider.
Whilst being dedicated to her family if there is any spare time Selina loves to indulge in a little champagne afternoon tea now and then!
Leigh Pogue
IT Support Analyst
After graduating in 2016 with a degree in mathematics, Leigh bounced between a couple of jobs until landing at Hat Trick in late 2018.
Their responsibilities include keeping the IT systems that Hat Trick runs on ticking along nicely, as well as providing assistance when people have any difficulties with the systems, and building/integrating new solutions for the company.
When not at work, Leigh can often be found at Vauxwall bouldering, or steadily making their way through the list of London’s cocktail bars.
Mark Redhead
Executive Producer (Scripted Drama)
Mark Redhead was a journalist and a documentary director before turning to drama. His productions range from the Bafta winning Murder of Stephen Lawrence, Bloody Sunday, winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin, RTS winning series Bodies, and Bafta nominated The Secret.
He has worked with writers and directors such as Paul Greengrass, Julian Fellowes, Jed Mercurio and Frank Cottrell Boyce.
Adam Reeve
Head of Development (Non Scripted)
Adam has worked in development for the last ten years at companies such as Endemol Shine, BBC Studios and Rumpus Media where he has developed countless world-class TV formats, the vast majority of which were promptly rejected by commissioners. Those that weren’t include Complaints Welcome for Channel 4, Rhod Gilbert’s Growing Pains for Comedy Central, The Great History Quiz for BBC Two and A Stitch in Time for BBC Four. Most recently he developed and produced Prince Andrew: The Musical for Channel 4.
Esther Reynolds
Production Accounts Assistant (Maternity Leave)
Esther is the Production Accounts Assistant for Hat Trick Productions and Livewire Pictures, working on non-scripted projects such as Have I got News For You, Mastermind and TV Showdown to name but a few.
A performing arts graduate and a recent graduate of the Assistant Production Accountant Scheme (APATS), she sees this role as a great opportunity to combine her accounting knowledge with her degree.
In her ‘me time’, she enjoys theatre, period dramas and 1980/90’s animation.
Kelly Ridout
Accountant
Kelly is the accountant for the Hat Trick group, doing company financial and management accounts and making sure HMRC know everything they need to about Hat Trick.
She’s worked in finance across various industries and moved from the countryside via Brisbane to London picking up a love of hula hooping along the way.
Originally joining in 2011, Kelly qualified with ACCA while at Hat Trick before taking a hiatus and re-joining the team in 2020.
Jack Ryan
Accounts Assistant
Having left and re-joined Hat Trick a record 87 times, Jack’s constant identity crisis has led him to become the coolest of the accountants. When he’s not plotting which holidays he can get away with, Jack enjoys DJing, crumbling at HIIT workouts, and wearing 4.5 cm shorts in the summer months.
Armen Seridarian
Head of Technology
Armen joined Hat Trick in 2005 and refuses to leave. As Head of Technology he oversees both the IT and the Post Production departments.
His primary focus is to invest in emerging technologies and maintaining infrastructure.
Jessica Sharkey
Director of Production
Jessica is Joint Director of Production with a focus on the scripted comedy and high end drama production slate for Hat Trick and HTM Television.
She started her career in casting and then moved up through production on a variety of genres for independent companies, the BBC and ITV.
She first worked at Hat Trick as a freelancer in 1997 joining as Joint Head of Production in 2004 where she and Laura Djanogly were pioneers of job-sharing at a senior level in the television industry. She still hasn’t managed to get rid of Laura.
Carly Shear
Head of Legal
Carly manages the Hat Trick legal team and works across the Group’s wide-ranging slates. Following a Masters in Human Rights Law, all sense of altruism was abandoned in pursuance of combining law with her true love of television and cinema.
Carly has worked in the industry since 2005 and is concurrently running the Hat Trick office located in Scotland (employees, 1).
Angela Sinden
Executive Producer (Scripted)
Angela is the Executive Producer for Scripted. She cut her story teeth on the first five years of BAFTA winning series Shameless and has stayed roughly within that wheelhouse ever since.
Equally at home with a half hour comedy series or a dark comedy drama, her TV heaven would be a mash-up of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Goonies and Early Doors. No pressure, writers.
Vicky Smith
Legal & Business Affairs Manager
Vicky is our legal and business affairs manager with day to day responsibility for Livewire Pictures and some of our non-scripted slate, as well as working closely with our distribution arm, Hat Trick International.
Vicky is also our go-to person for music licensing yet, remarkably, hasn’t allowed her extensive experience in this area to dampen her own enthusiasm for music and going to as many gigs as possible. She also loves whisky… but we don’t have a department for that.
Abbie Thomas
In-house runner
Abbie is one of our in-house runners. Having recently graduated from Bristol University with a BA in History, it’s no surprise she spends a lot of her time internally fact-checking popular historical TV shows.
When she is not working, she can be found binge watching old (and new) seasons of reality TV with a glass of wine.
Sarah Tong
International Sales Director
Sarah has worked in television distribution since 1992, working for both independent and broadcaster owned distributors, selling all genres and to all territories worldwide.
Since joining Hat Trick International in 2008, Sarah has expanded the catalogue from Hat Trick’s comedy and scripted output, to include factual and formats from a range of producers from outside of the Hat Trick Group.
The HTI team is an extremely experienced and excellent group of people which Sarah is proud to lead.
Susan Turnbull
Executive Assistant to Jimmy Mulville
Despite singing live with Blur on Top of the Pops in her 20s, Susan decided that TV comedy would provide a more realistic and enjoyable career than professional Britpop fan. She’s worked for all production companies great and small and has happily landed in Jimmy’s office at Hat Trick.
She has obsessions with spreadsheets, comedy, running adventures and dogs; all of which she has spreadsheets for. In the early 00s Susan ran a cult comedy website purely to interview comedians and get free show tickets. She cites her comedy hero as Sweep from The Sooty Show and can understand every genius word he squeaks.
Diggory Waite
Podcast Producer
As one of Hat Trick’s Podcast Producers, Diggory is very glad to have made one of his favourite hobbies – sitting in a dark room listening to voices in his head – into a career.
Outside of office hours, Diggory can be found supporting Arsenal Football Club from the safety of his armchair, quenching his unwavering and unsettling thirst for anything involving Hugh Grant and banging on the walls of the Hat Trick offices demanding to be let back in.
John Wakefield
Podcast Producer
For Hat Trick John helps produce ‘Queen Bees’, sound designs audio drama including ‘Holy Sh!t’ and is a developing scripted and documentary podcasts.
Elsewhere he’s worked on productions for BBC Radio 4, BBC World Service, Audible, developed and sound designed immersive films, and produced audiobooks.
His podcast ‘Wooden Overcoats’ has been featured as a must listen by TIME Magazine, the Guardian, The New York Times, NPR and The Hindu.
John been awarded a BBC Audio Drama Award, 3 British Podcast Awards, and nominated for the ARIAS and Prix-Europa.
When not working in audio, silent films are very appealing.
Josie Wilkins
RECEPTIONIST (Maternity Leave)
Josie helps to take care of our front of house, she is based on reception welcoming everyone into the building and is usually spotted rocking a Britney Spears-esque telephone headset.
Josie has previously worked in e-commerce, events, and office management before joining the Hat Trick team.
Outside of work, Josie enjoys a good pub quiz, listening to Springsteen and cheering on Crystal Palace from her seat in the Holmesdale.
Kate Wilson
Director of Operations
Kate is our Director of Operations. Her remit is to make Hat Trick a place where people can do their best work and, preferably, stay happy and sane while doing so.
She has had a couple of careers before telly – working at the Science Museum, a Breast Cancer Research Charity and even as a Pedagogical Researcher (yes we had to google it too). She also keeps one metaphorical foot in the charity sector as Chair of a UK charity supporting children’s projects in Odisha, India.
Kate’s favourite things about working in the Group is the sheer variety of what we produce and our ethos to do it with integrity.
Richard Wilson
Executive Producer (non scripted)
Richard has been working at Hat Trick on and off for about 25 years, mainly responsible for Have I Got News For You but also Room 101, The Bubble, The Revolution Will Be Televised, The Fake News Show and possibly the weirdest daytime series ever, Cheap Cheap Cheap.
Robyn Winfield-Smith
Development Researcher, Hat Trick Lab
Robyn is a stage, screen and immersive director with a passion for high end drama, scripted comedy, and digital innovation across the creative industries. Her 10-year background in theatre saw her working for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the NT Studio and on live cinema productions with Katie Mitchell, before pivoting via her own company Liminal Stage Productions into cross-industry XR work such as her live multi-camera virtual production show, FLEX, seed-commissioned by the RSC with R&D support from Epic Games, StoryFutures and the team behind THE MANDALORIAN. She hasn’t quite figured out how to (write a short sentence or) contain her excitement about joining the Hat Trick team yet…