Mothership targets unscripted projects of scale

Kelly Webb-Lamb has launched a broad unscripted indie with a top team including two former Channel 4 colleagues, Broadcast can reveal.

The former C4 deputy director of programmes and head of popular factual will be joined at Mothership Productions by Gilly Greenslade and Charlotte Desai, who were commissioning editors for fact ent and docs respectively at the broadcaster.

The third member of the senior team is experienced head of production Gudren Claire.

Mothership will focus on delivering global formats and ideas of scale and has begun pitching to broadcasters and SVoDs. It has several projects in advanced funded development.

Webb-Lamb, who is a former managing director at Shine TV, said she hopes to create shows that are unconstrained by conventional thinking around long-established genres.

“I loved my years at C4. Now it’s time to relish the freedom of stepping outside of a corporate structure and creating something creatively and commercially ambitious.

“The three of us are trusted developers and producers and we intend to build something special.”

Webb-Lamb hailed her new colleagues as “a brilliant group of women” and said they hope to make “properly great, entertaining, warm and witty programmes – and have a lot of fun”.

Mothership’s leadership team

Desai will be Mothership’s creative director. Her credits include ordering returning series The Dog House for C4 from Five Mile Films, and she joins Mothership after a spell working at the same indie.

At the label, run by former C4 head of docs Nick Mirsky, Desai developed off- grid Amish format The Simpler Life and forthcoming title The Dog Academy. She has also worked previously as a commissioner for Sky.

Greenslade is Mothership’s director of programmes and has previously ordered shows across reality, fact ent, and documentaries for C4, including The Circle, and Five Guys a Week.

Earlier in her career she developed and was the series producer on series one and two of the multi-award-winning documentary series Hospital for BBC2, as well as working on the likes of The Apprentice, Ladette to Lady and Wife Swap.

Claire has been appointed Mothership’s head of production, a role she has held at multiple production companies in a 25-year career, notably at Fresh One Productions and Jamie Oliver Productions.

Most recently she has been head of production and production consultant for companies including Parable and Summer Films.

Webb-Lamb spent five years as a major figure at Channel 4, working closely with director of programmes Ian Katz and managing a huge slate including the likes of Gogglebox, Naked Attraction and Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds. Other shows on which she has played a significant role during her career include Hunted, the Great British Bake Off and The Island with Bear Grylls.

She also developed new and diverse talent at C4, including Mo Gilligan, Sophie Willan and Yinka Bokinni ,and before departing in September helped conceive and shape the Black to Front initiative, working with Vivienne Molokwu and Shaminder Nahal.