Yorkshire-based Factual Fiction will produce drama, documentary and specialist factual content
A year after the worldwide sales success of the Channel 5 film ‘Agatha and the Truth of Murder’, the North Yorkshire-based husband and wife team behind it – Emily and Tom Dalton – have received backing from the UK’s leading media focussed investment group, Great Point Media, to start a regional production company. Great Point Ventures’ EIS investment in Factual Fiction is its second to be announced this year and eighth overall, consolidating a successful first 18 months for the fund.
Factual Fiction will combine Emily’s background as MD of Endemol Shine’s DSP and originator of hits The King in the Car Park, The Mill, 24Hrs in the Past, and Made in Great Britain, with Tom’s work as a commercials director and writer/producer of the Agatha trilogy. Combining drama, documentary and specialist factual, Factual Fiction will operate two sister labels: Good Story Rory and Salted Bomb, with each brand occupying a different part of the scripted and factual landscape.
The Daltons’ second Agatha film ‘The Curse of Ishtar’, starring Lyndsey Marshall and Jonah Hauer-King, made a similar impact to the first when it screened just before Christmas. Their third, ‘Midnight Murders’, starring Helen Baxendale, Blake Harrison and Alistair Petrie is coming soon.
Patrick Irwin (The Fall, Bang and the recent hit, Miss Scarlet and the Duke) has joined Factual Fiction as a consultant. He says: “I have great respect for Emily and Tom and their ability to deliver fantastic shows. As a fellow regional producer (Irwin is based in Wales), I welcome the shift in the centre of gravity away from the south of England. It’s a very exciting time for the regions and Factual Fiction will be at the heart of it.”
Also joining Emily and Tom as a development executive is Chamoun Issa: an award-winning commercials director and writer. Chamoun’s remit includes managing ideas across the different labels and developing relationships with a huge pool of Northern talent.
Jim Reeve, Group CEO at Great Point Media said: “Tom and Emily represent the depth of talent that can be found across the country and we look forward to helping Factual Fiction become an outstanding producer of quality content in the UK and beyond. In spite of the current difficulties faced by the production community, it’s essential investment of this type continues. We must ensure that the UK’s creative industries thrive in the post-coronavirus era.’
Over the past 12 months the Great Point Group has seen two projects backed by its funds receive Emmy nominations, eight early stage investments made in creative businesses, a highly successful exit of an SEIS qualifying company which backed the platinum-selling recording artist Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats, and £90 million deployed into new content. Great Point has also announced its first media infrastructure construction project, a major film and TV studio complex in Yonkers, New York and US$100 million of institutional capital raised to facilitate further project financing activities.
