Sky 1’s commitment to year-long original drama continues with ‘Hooten & The Lady’

On the day that You, Me and The Apocalypse hits the screen and in continuation with its commitment to year-round original content, Sky 1 announces a brand-new commission from Red Planet Pictures: Hooten & The Lady.

Showrunner Tony Jordan will head up a writing team which includes co-creators James Payne, Sarah Phelps, Jeff Povey and Richard Zajdlic and the show will consist of eight hour-long epic adventures.

Hooten & The Lady is the latest in a raft of original drama commissions for Sky 1 and will be distributed by Sky Vision.

On the new commission for the channel, Tony Jordan commented: “This is an incredibly ambitious show which I hope will be appointment to view television for a discerning drama audience on Sky 1. Seat of your pants adventure is the glue but Hooten & the Lady is all about these two amazing characters. We will be bringing a movie of the week to our audience with the highest production values and we are elated to have found Michael and Ophelia to bring our stories to life.”

To be shot in South Africa and locations across the globe, Hooten & The Lady will star Michael Landes (CSI, Love Soup, Soulmates, Miranda, Adventures of Superman) in the role of Hooten and Ophelia Lovibond (Guardians of the Galaxy, W1A, Mr Sloane, Man Up), as Lady Alexandra Lindo-Parker.  

Director of Sky 1 Adam MacDonald said; “Hooten & The Lady is gloriously ambitious and perfectly poised to take its place amongst the impressive line up for an exciting year ahead of brand-new drama and comedy for Sky.

We are delighted to be working with Tony and his team to bring this wonderful new drama to Sky 1. Hooten & The Lady will be a major highlight of next year’s summer schedule and a real treat to delight and entertain drama lovers and the whole family.”

Commissioned for Sky 1 by Anne Mensah and Cameron Roach, Hooten & The Lady will be produced by Red Planet Pictures and the lead director will be Colin Teague. It will be executive produced by Tony Jordan and Simon Winstone for Red Planet Pictures and Cameron Roach for Sky, with Caroline Levy as Series Producer.

Michael Landes said: “Humour, action, adventure and Tony Jordan. Where do I sign up? It's an opportunity of a lifetime. I'm so excited!!”

Ophelia Lovibond added: "I've never played a full-on action role like The Lady before, so I'm really looking forward to getting my teeth stuck in.  I'm excited at the prospect of working with Michael and it's also great to be working with Sky again. Not to mention filming in South Africa!”

Adventurer Hooten teams up with Lady Alexandra from the British Museum to track down fabled treasures from the past, including the lost Amazonian golden city of Z, the Buddha’s missing scroll and the lost tomb of Alexander the Great.  

The high octane adventure begins filming next month in Rome, with scenes in and around Vatican City, before production moves to Cape Town in South Africa.

Notes to editors

This Autumn saw the launch of an investment to year-round British Drama and Comedy content on Sky 1. Kicked off with the imminent continent spanning tale You, Me and the Apocalypse will be followed by heart-warming three-part drama Fungus and the Bogeyman by much-loved children’s author Raymond Briggs to be screened at Christmas. The drama on Sky 1 will continue with Stan Lee's Lucky Man, Agatha Raisin, The Five and now Hooten & The Lady.

Sky is Europe's leading entertainment company, serving 21 million customers across five countries: UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy. We offer the best and broadest range of content, deliver market-leading customer service and use innovative new technology to give customers a better TV experience, whenever and wherever they choose.

Sky has annual revenues of over £11 billion and is Europe's leading investor in television content with a combined programming budget of £4.9 billion. The group employs 30,000 people and is listed on the London Stock Exchange (SKY).

ABOUT RED PLANET PICTURES

Red Planet Pictures was founded by award-winning writer Tony Jordan in 2005 and has gone on to produce some of the UK’s most popular drama content of recent years. Red Planet Pictures has produced four series of the ratings hit Death in Paradise, with a fifth currently in production, the critically acclaimed WWI drama The Passing Bells as well as the recent retelling of Noah’s Ark, titled The Ark, all for BBC One. The prolific indie is also currently in production on the ambitious new 20-part drama Dickensian, a studio drama that will bring together iconic characters from Charles Dickens’ most famous works, for the BBC. Red Planet is also in development on UKTV’s first original drama commission Legion and the BBC’s first musical drama - a Motown inspired four-part musical, Stop! In The Name of Love. Red Planet Pictures also launched a factual arm this year to focus on the development of factual and factual entertainment formats and finished programming for UK and international broadcasters.