Drama producer Two Cities has made its firs major hire since hanging its shingle last summer with Stephen Wright named Creative Director. Wright joins the indie from BBC Northern Ireland where he was Head of Drama. Set up by Michael Jackson and Alex Graham, Two Cities is backed by BBC Worldwide which took an equity stake in the company in August.
At the BBC, Wright was responsible for commissioning two of the most highly regarded BBC dramas of recent years, Jed Mercurio’s Line Of Duty and Allan Cubitt’s The Fall. He was recently executive producer of BBC One drama My Mother And Other Strangers as well as A Song For Jenny, written by Frank McGuinness and starring Emily Watson.
On the feature side, he developed Gavin Hood’s 2016 hit Eye In the Sky, starring Helen Mirren, Arron Paul and Alan Rickman. Wright also produced Five Minutes Of Heaven, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.
Wright is joining a seasoned team. Jackson, who is based in New York, has a long track record in both the UK and the U.S. He was previously chief executive of Channel 4 and Controller of both BBC One and BBC Two with such credits as Sacha Baron Cohen’s Da Ali G Show; Big Brother and Queer As Folk. He was also Chairman of Universal Television and President of Programming at Barry Diller’s IAC. Graham founded UK production house Wall to Wall in 1987 which is now owned by Warner Bros. Credits include Who Do You Think You Are and the feature Man On Wire.
Jackson says, “Stephen has commissioned landmark British dramas that have also made an impact in the U.S. His edgy distinctive taste is exactly what want we want Two Cities to represent. We are very much looking forward to developing an exciting slate of projects together.”
