“Bold, confessional and furiously funny” – Radio Times

“The show everyone is talking about” – The Guardian

“Sensational” - Vogue

London (25 September, 2012):  SKY ATLANTIC HD today announces that Lena Dunham’s sensational new comedy GIRLS will launch with a double bill of the first two episodes exclusively to Sky customers on the channel and on the move via Sky Go on Monday 22nd October at 10pm.

Following the launch of SKY ATLANTIC +1 earlier this month, viewers will also be able to catch the double bill of the first two episodes of this hugely anticipated new series at 11pm.

Created by and starring filmmaker Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture) and co-executive produced by Judd Apatow (Bridesmaids, Knocked Up) and Jenni Konner (Help Me Help You, In The Motherhood), GIRLS has garnered widespread critical acclaim, rave reviews, one Primetime Emmy® Award for Outstanding Casting For A Comedy Series and a further four nominations and has been renewed for a second season.

The series takes a comic look at the assorted humiliations and rare triumphs of a group of girls – Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna - in their early 20s who, having lived in New York for a couple of years, Hannah, are still not sure what they want – from boys, from each other, from themselves.  And things aren’t getting any clearer.

About the GIRLS:

Hannah (Lena Dunham, Tiny Furniture) is a unique mixture of self-entitlement and self-loathing.  She believes she has the talent to be a successful writer, but forgets she has to write first.  She wants to have a boyfriend without the obligations of a relationship, and a job without having to work.  She’s ultimately good-natured, with a spirited sense of humour.  But every time Hannah is about to improve her circumstances, her cluelessness undercuts her.

Marnie (Allison Williams, American Dreams), Hannah’s roommate and best friend, is a Type A personality with strict rules about friendship.  She seems like Hannah’s opposite, because she’s got an actual job and a serious boyfriend.  But while she’s more together on the surface, her unwillingness to admit how lost she is may mean that she’s the most lost.

Jessa (Jemima Kirke, Tiny Furniture) is a live-and-let-live bohemian who’s allergic to anything she views as bourgeois.  She wants a life less ordinary and has travelled extensively.  She’s had lots of different jobs and lots of different boyfriends, but her apparent lack of fear belies her own kind of insecurity.  Jessa is apt to put crazy ideas in Hannah’s head that are easier for a gorgeous British girl to pull off than they are for anxious, rumpled Hannah.

Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet, Mad Men), Jessa’s roommate and cousin, aspires to the “Sex and the City” life.  She’s an NYU student obsessed with “women’s issues,” gluten-free foods and sexcentric self-help.  The others tend to underestimate her because she’s suburban and innocent, but Shoshanna can be a surprisingly incisive source of wisdom.

Lena Dunham directed five of the ten episodes of GIRLS.  Other directors on the show include Jody Lee Lipes (cinematographer on Martha Marcy May Marlene and Tiny Furniture), Jesse Peretz (Our Idiot Brother) and Richard Shepard (The Matador, Emmy® winner for Ugly Betty).  In addition to Dunham, who wrote or co-wrote every episode of the show, writers on GIRLS include Judd Apatow (Knocked Up), Bruce Eric Kaplan (Six Feet Under) and Jenni Konner (Help Me Help You, In the Motherhood, Undeclared).

GIRLS forms part of Sky Atlantic HD’s broader comedy strategy to bring the smartest, most engaging content of this genre from both sides of the Atlantic exclusively to Sky customers.  The channel’s stellar comedy line-up also includes Julia Davis’ Hunderby, Jack Dee’s Don’t Sit In The Front Row and dark comedy House of Lies.

GIRLS starts Monday 22nd October, 10pm, Sky Atlantic HD, Sky Atlantic +1 and on the move with Sky Go.

ENDS

For more information please contact:

Megan MacLeod                                             

Publicist, Sky Movies and Sky Atlantic

T: +44 (0)20 7032 4252                                   

M: +44 (0)7584 580 014

megan.macleod@bskyb.com

Follow us on twitter @skyatlantic, like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/skyatlantic  and visit us on the web www.sky.com/atlantic

Photography available from www.image.net or StillsDepartment@bskyb.com

Notes to Editors:

About Sky

Sky entertains and excites more than 10.4 million homes through the most comprehensive multichannel, multi-platform television service in the UK and Ireland. Sky continues to break new ground with its own portfolio of channels: Sky 1 combines its commitment to UK production with the best of the US; Sky Living pushes ahead with fresh and innovative entertainment formats; Sky Arts is the UK's only dedicated arts channel brand; Sky Atlantic is the home to HBO and other iconic drama and comedy, Sky Sports is still raising the bar in sports broadcasting; Sky News remains a pioneer in television news; and Sky Movies is leading the way in High Definition and on-demand.

Sky also works with dozens of other broadcasters on the satellite platform, as well as online and on mobile through the ground-breaking Sky Go service.  Sky has also led the UK into the age of high definition television, launched Europe's first 3DTV channel, Sky 3D, and offers customer even more flexibility and choice through Sky Anytime+, its internet-delivered video on demand service.   Since launching Sky Broadband and Sky Talk in 2006, the company has also been the UK's fastest-growing home communications provider.

Sky believes in making a wider contribution to the communities in which it operates, not least by increasing participation in, and access to, the arts, supporting grassroots sports, and taking positive action on the environment.

For further information please contact

Megan MacLeod - Publicist, Sky Movies HD, Sky Atlantic HD
T:
E: megan.macleod@bskyb.com