Deadpan Pictures have announced the appointment of comedian Ardal O’Hanlon to the Advisory Board of the company.
Ardal is one of Ireland’s top stand-up comedians and comic actors. His credits include ‘Father Ted’ - for which he received a British Comedy Award and a BAFTA nomination - ‘My Hero’, ‘Skins’, ‘Dr.Who’ and the upcoming ‘After Hours’. He was also Olivier-nominated for Conor McPherson’s ‘The Weir’ in the West End.
Ardal has worked previously with producer Paul Donovan on ‘Val Falvey’ (one of the top 10 programmes on RTE in 2009) and the Arthur Mathews scripted feature film ‘Wide Open Spaces’. He continues to tour worldwide as a stand up.
Paul Donovan, MD of Deadpan commented We have a decent track record in comedy but want to kick on to the next level and the idea of the Advisory Board is to surround ourselves with a mix of talent and business expertise. We will take all the help we can get! Ardal is a great fit for us as he is someone who has done on a personal level what we hope to achieve as a business – a comedy success in the UK while based in Ireland with a clearly Irish brand of humour.
O’ Hanlon commented: I see myself as more than an advisor - Paul Donovan is actually my handpuppet.
As IFTN previously reported, Deadpan Pictures is the new moniker for Paul Donovan’s wing of Grand Pictures with their main energy and focus now principally on TV comedy production for UK and Irish broadcasters.