Ailish McElmeel - Company Director and Producer
Ailish has won multiple international awards for producing critically acclaimed and popular TV shows and feature films over her fifteen-year career. She was recently executive producer on Sharon Horgan and Lorna Martin’s Women on the Verge for UKTV’s Channel W and RTÉ. Earlier this year she produced Season 2 of Can’t Cope Won’t Cope for RTÉ, BBC3 and which has recently sold to Netflix worldwide. It’s a comedy-drama written by Stefanie Preissner and starring Seana Kerslake and Nika McGuigan with Kew Media handling international sales.
In 2017 Ailish produced Nowhere Fast a ‘dramedy’ series for RTÉ 2 written by Alison Spittle, with BBC Worldwide handling international sales. She also produced Halal Daddy in 2017, Conor McDermottroe’s second feature, co-written by Mark O’Halloran and starring Nikesh Patel, Colm Meaney, Sarah Bolger, and Art Malik. Global Screen handled international sales and Koch Media managed the film’s German release.
In 2015 Ailish produced a RTÉ/IFB funded webseries, Burning Wishes which picked up over 20 international awards including Best Webseries at the Bilbao Webfest and a Best Director prize at the San Francisco Webfest for director Vincent Gallagher.
Prior to establishing Deadpan Pictures with Paul Donovan in 2014, Ailish was Head of Production for Grand Pictures, across three series’ of IFTA Award-winning, British Comedy Award-winning and International Emmy Award-winning comedy Moone Boy for Sky. In 2012 Ailish co-produced series two of TRIVIA, with series one nominated for the Monte Carlo TV Festival Awards. Written by Damien Owens, directed by Tom Hall and starring David Pearse and Janet Moran, Trivia was produced for RTÉ with the support of the BAI.
In 2009 Ailish co-produced Grand Pictures comedy series, Val Falvey, TD for RTÉ, starring Ardal O’Hanlon and written by Arthur Mathews (Fr. Ted) and Paul Woodful. In 2008 she co-produced Wide Open Spaces, a feature film penned by Arthur Mathews (Fr. Ted) and directed by Tom Hall which starred Ardal O’Hanlon and Ewen Bremner, premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and enjoyed theatrical release in 2009. She also co-produced Grand Pictures’ Irish/German co-production The Race, with Colm Meaney and Susan Lynch, and in 2008 Ailish co-produced School Race, a two-part drama series for TV3.
Deadpan is now developing a slate of TV projects through their first look deal with Kew Media and also with BBC Worldwide and film projects with BAFTA-winning talent including Neasa Hardiman.
Ailish has previously completed Trans Atlantic Partners (2013), EAVE producers workshop 2007, Development Executive Traineeship facilitated by Screen Training Ireland and awarded by UCLA, and holds a BSc. in Film and Broadcasting.
