Beyond Productions UK has appointed executive producer and showrunner Hamo Forsyth to the new role of creative director, factual.
Forsyth will report into Beyond Productions’ president John Luscombe, and will work closely with Damon Pattison, also a creative director in the UK office, who focuses primarily on formatted entertainment and factual entertainment.
Hamo, who joins Beyond Productions UK today, will be charged with leading the development of factual content for UK commissions but will also work with the development teams in the Australian and US offices on co-production opportunities.
Hamo’s most recent projects include showrunner/executive producer for Wall to Wall on Apple TV series Becoming You and co-executive producer for Nutopia on a major, yet-to-be-named, documentary series for a global streaming platform.
He was executive producer and head of programmes at The Garden Productions for six years, working on a range of shows including the BAFTA-nominated and Bulldog Award-winning titles 24 Hours in Police Custody and 24 Hours in A&E. Before that he was at North One TV, where he worked across the Channel 4 series How Britain Worked with Guy Martin, winner of an RTS Best Factual Programme award.
Prior to that, Hamo was at the BBC where projects included Donald Trump: All-American Billionaire, The Foods That Make Billions and Mary Portas: Save Our Shops. He also originated and piloted BBC One’s Rogue Restaurants and long-running Rogue Traders series. In addition, Hamo spent four years in New York as a series producer for BBC Productions, producing and directing several local factual entertainment formats, including Honey We’re Killing the Kids USA and What Not to Wear USA.
John Luscombe, Beyond Productions’ president, commented: “We are delighted to welcome Hamo to the Beyond Productions teams in London and Manchester (Beyond Productions North) and excited to broaden our UK focus to include specialist factual content. The UK office, which only came into being mid-2020 when Beyond acquired Seven Studios UK, has hit the ground running with the hugely successful Pooch Perfect for BBC One and My Lottery Dream Home International, which is launching next month on HGTV in the US. However, the time is now right to expand our offer. Hamo has an impressive track record in factual television and his experience will perfectly compliment Damon Pattison’s in formats. Our UK office could not be in better hands with these two and is now well positioned for growth.”
Hamo Forsyth said: “This is a fantastic brief for me, and I relish the challenge of helping Damon to drive the Beyond Productions business in the UK, while also being part of, and contributing to, the larger international business. There is a great appetite for strong factual content at the moment, both from UK broadcasters and the global streamers, and my experience of working with both means I look forward to creating fresh content that will be in demand here and overseas.”
With a focus on factual and entertainment programming, Beyond Productions was founded in 1984 with the production of long-running science magazine series Beyond 2000. Beyond has development and production offices in Australia, the UK and the US.
Beyond Productions credits include MythBusters for Discovery US, My Lottery Dream Home for HGTV US, Log Selling Houses Australia and Love It Or List It for Foxtel, long-running true-crime original Deadly Women for Investigation Discovery, investigative series Curse of Akakor for Facebook Watch, science series White Rabbit Project for Netflix, and dog grooming competition format Pooch Perfect, produced for the BBC and for ABC Network in the USA.
Jon Creamer
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