Rebecca Front, Julia Davis, Sharon Horgan and Katy Brand confirmed for new sketch show Playhouse Presents…Psychobitches

Sky Arts 1, Spring 2013.

Sky Arts has confirmed that Playhouse Presents… Psychobitches, an all-star sketch show that sees some of history’s most famous women psychoanalysed, has been ordered for a series, to air on the channel in 2013.

Produced for the channel by the award-winning Tiger Aspect Productions, the comedy celebrates outstanding women from history and all their gloriously bonkers issues. One therapist’s room, one therapist and a waiting room full of acclaimed ladies.

Starring Rebecca Front as the therapist, the series will see the core cast play a number of women from history including Julia Davis as Sylvia Plath, Sharon Horgan as Eve, Sam Spiro as Audrey Hepburn, Frances Barber Bette Davis, Kathy Burke as Mona Lisa, and Katy Brand as Mary Shelley.  It also features Tamsin Egerton, Selina Griffiths, Zawe Ashton, Jo Scanlan, Sarah Solemani and Sharon D Clarke.

The series will also include characters from Jack Whitehall, Harry Enfield and reunites all the League of Gentlemen team Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton.

Psychobitches began life on the channel as one of the Playhouse Presents, Sky Arts’s hugely successful series of 30 minute comedies and dramas.

Jeremy Dyson will once more direct and will also lead the team of writers which includes Bert Tyler-Moore and George Jeffrie, Ali Crockatt and David Scott, Lucy Montgomery, Kathy Burke, Derren Litten, Holly Walsh and Freddy Syborn. It will be produced by Pippa Brown (Walking and Talking, Bad Education) with Executive Producers  Ben Cavey (Tiger Aspect Productions) and Saskia Schuster (Sky).

“We are very proud of Psychobitches, a honeypot for our funniest comedy actresses. A treat for 2013,”said Lucy Lumsden, Head of Comedy, Sky.

James Hunt, Channel Director of Sky Arts, has confirmed that a new run of Playhouse Presents… will begin in the spring. The full line-up of cast and productions will be announced in January, but names thus far confirmed include Idris Elba, Marc Warren and Matt Smith.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT

Katherine Solomon PR Manager, Sky Press Office

T: 0207 032 0599

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Dominic Collett Sky Arts Publicist, Sky Press Office

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NOTES TO EDITOR

About Sky Arts

Sky Arts offers an eclectic mix of the best music, arts, biographies, chat shows, film, drama and comedy. Sky is the only broadcaster in the UK and Ireland with channels dedicated solely to the arts, with 48 hours of the best arts content from around the world across Sky Arts 1 and Sky Arts 2 daily. Sky Arts now reaches more than 6 million viewers every month.

Recent highlights include Playhouse Presents… a series of one-off comedies and dramas starring the cream of British talent including Emma Thompson, Sir Tom Jones, Brenda Blethyn, David Tennant and Alison Steadman. The channel was also responsible for resurrecting the much-loved South Bank Show and The South Bank Show Awards. Sky Arts also encourages new formats and methods for accessing the arts, working with the ENO and National Gallery to beam the world’s first live opera and first live opening night of an exhibition in 3D to cinemas across the UK and Ireland.

Sky Arts also seeks to connect with culture on the ground; creating and collaborating with the best of the arts in the UK and Ireland to bring new experiences to life. Sky Arts has collaborated with a number of arts organisations including the English National Ballet and has supported the Hay Festival as broadcast partner since 2006. The Sky Arts Ignition Series launched in in 2011 to invest in the arts landscape of the UK. The Series will seek to collaborate with six arts organisations over the next three years in the creation of brand new works; Sky Arts Ignition Series: Futures Fund will support five young artists with a bursary of £30,000 each, enabling Sky Arts to back the creation of new works of art as well as nurture emerging talent.

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