Ash Atalla
Founder/MD, Roughcut TV
Ash Atalla, is Britain’s most prolific and award-winning comedy producer. With a Primetime Emmy, a Golden Globe, six BAFTAs, four RTS awards and three British Comedy awards to his name, Ash is best known for the multi award-winning series The Office, The IT Crowd, Stath Lets Flats, Cuckoo and People Just Do Nothing.
As he continues his hugely successful career in television, established over the past 20 years, Ash recently turned his attention to the movie industry and drama. His first feature film, People Just Do Nothing: Big In Japan, launched to critical acclaim in summer 2021. Ash also has a number of high-end drama projects in development including Sarah Vaughan’s psychological thriller Little Disasters. Vaughan’s Anatomy Of A Scandal will air this spring on Netflix and is adapted for screen by David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies) and Melissa James Gibson (House Of Cards).
Ash has an acute talent for discovering and nurturing new writers and actors. Writer, actor and comedian, Tim Renkow, was nominated for Breakthrough Act at the RTS Awards 2020 and his comedy series Jerk, won the Representation of Disability Award at the MIPCOM Diversify TV Excellence awards. Tim was also selected as a writer-performer for BAFTA Breakthrough. Jerk series 2 aired last year on BBC One.
A pioneering producer in the comedy genre with over 60 executive producer credits, Ash also discovered Jack Rooke, creator and writer of upcoming C4 comedy and Jamie Demetriou, the BAFTA award-winning, creator, writer and star of Stath Lets Flats.
Ash has consolidated his position as an inclusive and committed industry leader with a particular focus on diversity and disability within programming and the workplace. His most recent series Bloods, created by Samson Kayo and Nathan Bryon, starring Samson Kayo and Jane Horrocks aired on Sky One in May 2021 and a second series will air in spring 2022.
As well as producing television formats for the UK, Ash is constantly exploring unique formats that can play abroad, especially in the US television landscape. The BAFTA award-winning Stath Lets Flats aired on HBO MAX last year.
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.
Ash is a regular commentator on race, politics, disability & diversity in television and film both on & off screen plus the comedy & drama landscape. He writes a regular column for Broadcast magazine.