“One of the smartest, most charming and funny shows you’re likely to see all year… This is easily Amazon’s best new sitcom (and no, I haven’t forgotten Transparent).”
Ken Tucker, Yahoo TV (USA)
“It is also hilarious, as Horgan and Delaney who wrote the show together, play the characters off each other to perfection. The result may turn out to be the worst – by which we mean the best – new comedy of the year”
Clark Collis, Entertainment Weekly (USA)
It was announced today (19 June 2015), on the day it is launching to plaudits in the USA, that Avalon Distribution has agreed multiple global sales of the universally critically acclaimed comedy series, Catastrophe (12 x 30′). In an unprecedented marketing move, Amazon made the pilot episode available to a US audience via its Facebook page for 48 hours earlier this week where it was watched over three million times. Audiences in Norway, Belgium, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Iceland, The Netherlands, Finland and Luxembourg will all also be able to watch the series.
First shown on Channel 4 in the UK and now launching exclusively in the USA to Amazon Prime Instant Video members (the series will also be shown on Prime Instant Video in the UK later this year) Avalon Distribution can announce they have struck further multiple-series deals across Canada, Europe and Australasia. Global buyers include subscription video streaming service, shomi in Canada, Sky in New Zealand, Channel 2 in Iceland and AMC Networks for the Sundance Channel in Benelux. In Scandinavia all of the public broadcasters (SVT, DR, YLE and NRK) have picked up the series with deals in further major territories expected to be announced soon.
Written by and starring ROB DELANEY and SHARON HORGAN, Catastrophe is a comedy following an Irish woman and an American man who make a bloody mess as they struggle to fall in love in London. Clumsy lust, instant pregnancy, and genuine disaster provide the foundation for this flaming hovel of a relationship. Produced by Avalon Television with co-producers Birdbath Productions and Merman Films the show was immediately re-commissioned for a second series by Channel 4 and is expected to be delivered later this year. Catastrophe is produced by JACK BAYLES (The Mimic, VIP), directed by BEN TAYLOR (Cardinal Burns, Cuckoo), while executive producers are, RICHARD ALLEN-TURNER, KARA BAKER, ROB DELANEY, SHARON HORGAN and JON THODAY. Avalon Television is also currently in production with: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), Not Going Out (BBC One), Russell Howard’s Good News (BBC Two), Man Down (Channel 4), Russell Howard’s Stand Up Central (Comedy Central UK), Taskmaster (UKTV) and Workaholics (Comedy Central USA).
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For further information please contact:
Dan Lloyd at Avalon on danl@avalonuk.com or 020 7598 8000
Notes to editors:
What the press have said about Catastrophe in the USA
“a charming and decidedly salty series…an awkward yet sweet romance. The show’s distinctly British sense of humor is wonderful…The six-episode first season of Catastrophe aired earlier this year in Britain and has already been picked up for a second season there. One hopes Amazon will decide to pick up the second season as well. If they don’t, it’ll be a catastrophe.”
Amy Amatangelo, The Hollywood Reporter
“It’s quieter and smoother, with an HBO-style gloss, and it spends a surprising amount of time on the sincere-sentimental side of the rom-com equation. It sometimes feels like a darker, more brittle takes on James Corden and Ruth Jones’s sweetly corny “Gavin and Stacey”…Mr. Delaney and Ms. Horgan, as writers and performers, are able to make most of the serious moments believable and bearable, even touching”
Mike Hale, The New York Times
“It is also hilarious, as Horgan and Delaney who wrote the show together, play the characters off each other to perfection. The result may turn out to be the worst – by which we mean the best – new comedy of the year”
Clark Collis, Entertainment Weekly
“So what is the secret to a great sitcom? There may not be one, but in the case of “Catastrophe,” it’s great writing with a savvy juxtaposition of comedy and sometimes ugly everyday real life. It doesn’t hurt that the writers and stars are the same people as well. “Catastrophe” is wonderfully misnamed.”
David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle
“One of the smartest, most charming and funny shows you’re likely to see all year…This is easily Amazon’s best new sitcom (and no, I haven’t forgotten Transparent).”
Ken Tucker, Yahoo TV
“it has built a wickedly funny comedy around two people trying really hard, who seem to be falling in love with each other despite all logic. Sounds like the quintessential romantic comedy idea to me”
Eric Deggans, NPR
“Amazon’s ‘Catastrophe’ is anything but…what’s best about “Catastrophe” is how engaging the characters of Rob and Sharon are, and how quickly we come to root for them. Did I mention there are just six episodes? The real catastrophe would be not getting more “Catastrophe.””
Gail Pennington, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“the six-episode comedy is distinctive for taking this setup and dealing with the messy complications that naturally occur, but that romantic comedies generally try not to think about…Racy, amiable and honest, Catastrophe doesn’t feel the need to amp up its story with surprises either. It just does the exact thing it’s supposed to”
James Poniewozik, Time
“Catastrophe” is going for laughs, but it also has something to say about people who’ve lived long enough to know that satisfaction doesn’t come with a perfectly tied bow on it”
Hank Stuever, The Washington Post
“In six eventful and bitingly funny episodes that take the rom-com formula to seriously twisted extremes, an American abroad impregnates a wry Irish schoolteacher during a torrid weekend. As they say on either side of the pond, complications ensue: some hilarious, many humbling.”
Matt Roush, TV Guide Magazine
What the press have said about Catastrophe in the UK
“This startlingly good new adult rom-com sees Horgan, along with co-creator/co-star Rob Delaney, deliver what already looks like one of the comedies of the year: it’s filthy, clever, snappy and heartfelt”
Jack Seale, Radio Times
“Perhaps the chemistry between Delaney and Horgan is so strong, the balance so well done, because the pair have created and written the series together. Certainly, they have created something rare – a good-hearted comedy which still manages to be raw and rude”
Alex Hardy, The Times
“Catastrophe is depraved, sweet and very, very funny…a half hour narrative comedy that bursts with jokes. Solid, delicious chunks of funny pudding rather than the funny-flavoured foam we’ve been doused in lately…For all this degeneracy, it isn’t plain dark or out to shock. It’s genuinely sweet and I care what happens to them. Just not the kind of sweet that gets stuck in your teeth”
Julia Raeside, The Guardian
“Great new sitcom from Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney which is both believable and hilarious”
Ian Hyland, The Mirror
“restores quality, wit and unpredictability to the romcom genre”
★★★★★
Boyd Hilton, Heat
“it’s a comedy that fires no blanks.”
Mark Wareham, The Mail on Sunday
