Sharon Horgan is getting back in bed with HBO, as the network announced today that it’s signed a two-year first-look deal with the Catastrophe and Bad Sisters creator, including plans for a brand new series that Horgan will write, star in, and produce. The new show, as yet untitled, will follow “a 50-year-old divorcee’s search for sex and love whilst juggling caring for her ailing parents and parenting her should-be grown up son”—which, while admittedly sounding a bit like what you might get if you asked an AI to generate an idea for a Sharon Horgan TV show, does also seem like it could be both very funny and very heartbreaking, per usual, in actual practice.
Horgan previously worked with HBO on the 2010s Sarah Jessica Parker dramedy Divorce, which she both created and wrote for; since then, she’s had a frankly ridiculous amount of success both in front of, and behind, the camera: Catastrophe, which she co-created and starred in with Rob Delaney, massively raised her profile, and she’s since followed that success with Starz show Shining Vale, British series Motherland, and Apple TV+’s current Bad Sisters, which she also stars in (and just won a BAFTA for). HBO has now purchased access to those hit-making skills for itself, signing both Horgan, and her Merman production company, to a deal that gives the network first dibs on its projects for the next two years. The new show, meanwhile, has already been granted a straight-to-series order from the network.
HBO’s Comedy Programming head, Amy Gravitt, was effusive in a statement about Horgan today, writing, “We’re thrilled to be reunited with Sharon. Her willingness to offer up her own experiences through the characters she creates makes us all feel a little less lonely, that is what sets her comedy apart so brilliantly. She also has such a sharp eye for material and a strong desire to shepherd other people’s stories, we’re looking forward to the new talent she will bring into the fold.”
