Bear Grylls duo launch Marshal Bishop Productions

Programme-makers Mark Westcott and Duncan Gaudin have launched new formatted factual and factual entertainment indie, Marshal Bishop Productions.

Marshal Bishop will focus is on returnable factual series. The founding duo have a long track record as particularly in adventure programme-making.

Westcott is an award-winning director and producer. Principally known for his work with Bear Grylls – which includes Bear Grylls: Mission Survive (ITV); Survivor Games (Shanghai Media); Escape To The Legion (Channel 4); Man Versus Wild (Discovery Channel; known in the UK as Born Survivor) – he has credits across the full range of factual programming. His many popular factual credits include Gordon Ramsay’s The F Word (Channel 4), DIY SOS (BBC One), and The Clothes Show (BBC One); his specialist factual credits include Malaysia 370: The Plane That Vanished (Smithsonian Channel), Cruise Ship Disaster: Inside the Concordia (Discovery Channel), Miracle of the Hudson Plane Crash (Discovery Channel), Raging Planet for Discovery and The Mystery Files for National Geographic; whilst his adventure credits, in addition to his Bear Grylls work, include Science of Survival: Amazon and Man, Woman, Wild (both for Discovery Channel).

Award-winning Gaudin is one of the UK’s leading location producers. His credits include several series with Bear Grylls including the RTS and BAFTA award-winning The Island (Channel 4); National Television Awards nominated Bear Grylls: Mission Survive (ITV); six series of Man Versus Wild (Discovery Channel; known in the UK as Born Survivor); Bear’s Wild Weekends (Channel 4); and Running Wild with Bear Grylls (NBC). Like Westcott, he has also worked across the full factual spectrum including popular factual series such as Top Gear USA and Top Gear UK for the BBC; Amazon’s The Grand Tour; Gladiators (ITV); and 100 years younger in 21 days (ITV); as well as the RTS- and BAFTA-nominated The Plane Crash (Channel 4/Discovery). Gaudin has worked on content for SVOD providers Amazon and YouTube Red and broadcasters including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky 1, Channel 5, NBC, History Channel and Discovery.

Mark Westcott, CEO, Marshal Bishop, says: “The demand for formatted and factual entertainment content is booming across all platforms. Marshal Bishop has fresh ideas, big creative concepts and a wealth of strong partnerships across the world on which we can draw. Our aim is to create and co-produce ideas and content with independent production companies around the world, whether those are for UK or international broadcasters. In the current Covid climate, this makes us much more flexible in terms of how ideas are funded and delivered. Bringing high quality to the screen is our absolute priority, but we are proactively wanting to work with partners in order to do that.”

Duncan Gaudin, Chief Creative Officer, Marshal Bishop, adds: “Our track record of working with some of the world’s biggest talent in formatted and factual entertainment allows us to pair exceptional faces with great ideas. We already have a development slate that includes precinct-based reality, survival, endurance and adventure formats and location-based challenge game shows for which we are seeking partners. With a project already well under way in America, we have really hit the ground running.”