Samson Kayo & Jane Horrocks return to Sky in an all new bigger and bolder series of BLOODS

Filming has started on a new series of Sky Original Bloods, Sky’s critically acclaimed paramedic comedy starring BAFTA nominated Samson Kayo and Golden Globe nominated Jane Horrocks. The bigger 10-episode deal will be made for Sky by BAFTA award-winning Roughcut TV (Stath Lets Flats, People Just Do Nothing, Cuckoo) in association with Sky Studios. It will air on Sky Comedy and streaming service NOW in two viewing drops coming in 2022. 

Bloods follows tough-acting loner Maleek (Kayo) and over-friendly divorcee Wendy (Horrocks), a pair of mismatched paramedics and their fellow ambulance station colleagues through the life-saving world of a south London emergency service. Katherine Kelly (Innocent, Liar) joins the cast in the two new series as the ambulance stations acting counsellor and listening ear and Nathan Foad (Our Flag Means Death) will play Wendy’s son Spencer. 

The shows returning cast include; Lucy Punch (Motherland) as boisterous station boss Jo and Julian Barratt (Mighty Boosh) as grieving widower Lawrence. Adrian Scarborough (Gavin and Stacey) and Aasiya Shah (Raised By Wolves) reprise their roles as Gary and Kareshma, paramedics with diametrically opposing career outlooks, and Kevin Garry (Ted Lasso) and Sam Campbell (Melbourne International Comedy Festival Barry Award winner) as the glued-to-the-hip duo of paramedics Darrell and Darryl. 

The news comes as it is revealed that US streaming service Hulu has acquired the series in a multi-season deal. The first series of Bloods is set to debut on the streamer next month on December 9.  

The hit first series has been described as “A magnificent paramedic comedy full of gallows humour ★★★★★” by The Independent and containing “lovable characters and an impressive high hit rate of gags” by TV Times, while Radio Times described Kayo and Horrocks as “an unexpectedly dazzling comedy duo.” The 10x30min episodes will be shot at North London Studios and in various locations in South London and will continue to bring humorous relief to the world and characters of the paramedic service while recognising the talent of those who put their own lives at risk in an emergency to help keep us safe and healthy. 

Samson Kayo said: “I’m so excited the BLOODS team are back together again for this new bigger and bolder series. With ten episodes, there is going to be loads more laughs, friendship and fun for fans to enjoy. Maleek is reunited with his miss-matched paramedic partner Wendy and he can’t wait to hit the roads again in their ambulance!"

Jane Horrocks said: “I am very much looking forward to getting back to Bloods for series 2. The scripts are already banging and Wendy is getting more naughty!” 

Bloods is being made for Sky by Roughcut TV and was commissioned by Zai Bennett, Sky’s Managing Director of Content, Jon Mountague, Sky Studios’ Director of Comedy and Tilusha Ghelani Commissioning editor for Sky Studios. Created by Samson Kayo and Nathan Bryon the show is written by Nathan Bryon and Paul Doolan (Trollied) and produced by Debbie Pisani (Flack & Back to Life), new writers include: Patricia Elcock, Tasha Dhanraj and Tom Melia. The executive producers for Roughcut are Ash Atalla (The Office, The IT Crowd) and Alex Smith (Trollied). Bloods will be distributed by NBCUniversal Global Distribution on behalf of Sky Studios. 

Bloods series one is available on Sky on demand and streaming service NOW 

For more information, please contact: 

dominic.collett@sky.uk
katie.white@sky.uk 

Notes to editors.  

About Sky 

Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of Comcast Corporation, a global media and technology company that connects people to moments that matter. Across six countries, Sky connects 23 million customers to the best entertainment, sports, news, arts and to our own award-winning original content.  

Following the launch of Sky Glass, we now offer customers our strongest ever line-up of products and services. As well as the new streaming TV with Sky inside and everything integrated, customers can enjoy the award-winning Sky Q with all your favourite channels and apps in one place, and with Sky Go you can now access an even better experience on your devices. Sky TV has new channels, new shows and new deals with Peacock, Paramount+ and more. Sky Mobile was voted Best Pay Monthly and Best Value Pay Monthly network by Uswitch, and with Sky Broadband we’re offering our fastest speeds yet. 

Building on the success of Sky Originals like Chernobyl, Gangs of London and Brassic, we are doubling our investment in original content by 2024 through Sky Studios. Our new TV and movie studio, Sky Studios Elstree, is expected to create over 2,000 new jobs and generate an additional £3 billion of production investment in the UK over the first five years alone. Sky News provides impartial and trustworthy journalism for free, Sky Arts is the UK’s only dedicated free-to-air arts channel making the arts accessible for everyone and Sky Sports, our leading sports broadcasting service, brings customers some of the biggest and best global sporting events from the Premier League to Formula 1 and everything in-between. Sky Cinema is the home of Sky Original films with brand new films launching every month alongside an unrivalled range of the latest cinema releases and on demand library. 

We believe that we can be a force for good in the communities in which we operate. We’re committed to being Europe’s first net zero carbon entertainment company by 2030 and we’re proud to be a Principal Partner and Media Partner of COP26 – the UN Climate Change Conference. We take pride in our approach to diversity and inclusion: we’ve been recognised by The Times and Stonewall for our commitment to diversity, and we’ve set ambitious 2025 targets to continue to increase diversity and representation.  We’re also committed to investing £30million across our markets over the next three years to improve our approach to diversity and inclusion, and to tackle racial injustice. 

About Roughcut TV 

Roughcut Television is one of the UK’s fastest growing independent production companies and one of the biggest producers of scripted comedy. The company is rapidly expanding into drama with script commissions for various broadcasters. 

Established in 2007 by Ash Atalla and Tim Sealey, the company has been leading the comedy space with multi award-winning productions that include; three-time BAFTA award-winning STATH LETS FLATS (Channel 4), two-time BAFTA winning PEOPLE JUST DO NOTHING, CUCKOO (BBC3), TROLLIED (SKY1) and JERK (BBC3). Roughcut’s first feature - PEOPLE JUST DO NOTHING: BIG IN JAPAN was released in UK cinemas nationwide on 18th August. The first series of BLOODS, aired on Sky One in May 2021 and starred BAFTA-nominated Samson Kayo (Famalam, Timewasters) and Golden Globe-nominated Jane Horrocks (Absolutely Fabulous, Little Voice).  

STATH LETS FLATS has completed filming on a third series for C4 and will air Autumn 2021, while series one aired on HBO MAX in the US to great acclaim in November 2020. JERK 2, starring Tim Renkow, Sharon Rooney, Rob Madin and Lorraine Bracco aired on BBC One and BBC Three in August. BIG BOYS, written and narrated by Jack Rookehas just wrapped filming this month for C4.  SNEAKERHEAD (working title) – a three-parter for UKTV/DAVE is due to begin filming in London this winter. FOX is developing a US format of the show called BREN RENTS.  Previous successes include TROLLIED for Sky One, which broke records as the highest-rated multichannel comedy launch in British TV history. Roughcut TV also made US-based multi-cam comedy I LIVE WITH MODELS (Comedy Central), HOSPITAL PEOPLE (BBC1), CARTERS GET RICH (SKY1) TOP COPPERS, a cop film spoof (BBC3) and WORLD’S CRAZIEST FOOLS (BBC3), starring Mr. T.  In addition, Roughcut TV has made pilots for US formats of CUCKOO for NBC and PEOPLE JUST DO NOTHING for Amazon.