Following the critically acclaimed first series, Sky Original comedy Breeders, starring Emmy and BAFTA-winning Martin Freeman (Fargo, Sherlock, Black Panther) and International Emmy and BAFTA-nominated Daisy Haggard (Back to Life, Episodes, Black Mirror), returns to Sky One and streaming service NOW on Thursday 27 May. All ten episodes will be available on demand. Breeders continues to explore the parental paradox that you'd happily die for your children, but quite often also want to kill them. In the new series, time has moved on from where we left Paul (Freeman) and Ally's (Haggard) family. Their son Luke (Alex Eastwood) is now 13 years old and daughter Ava (Eve Prenelle) is now 10, both serving up brand new parenting challenges. Luke's increasing anxiety and Ava's growing independence add some new and uncharted complications into the existing chaotic mix of stretched resources, lack of time and the fine art of winging it while looking like you know what you're doing.
Paul's parents, Jackie (Joanna Bacon) and Jim (Alun Armstrong) are older too, as is Ally's mother Leah (Stella Gonet), leading Paul and Ally to find that they now must parent the generation above them as well as the generation below. And at the centre of all this is Paul and Ally's relationship. Can they survive these new pressures when they only just about survived the old ones? Or is there a finite number of ropes you can find yourself at the end of?
Daisy Haggard has been nominated for this year's British Academy Television Award, Female Performance in a Comedy Programme, for her role in the series.
Breeders is produced by Avalon and FX Productions for FX Networks and Sky Originals. Academy Award -nominee and double Emmy Award-winner Simon Blackwell (Veep, Peep Show, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Back) is showrunner. Breeders is created by Blackwell, double Emmy Award and Directors Guild of America Award winner Chris Addison (Veep, The Thick of It, The Hustle) and Emmy and BAFTA -winning Martin Freeman (Fargo, Sherlock, Black Panther, Captain America: Civil War, The Hobbit), who also stars alongside Daisy Haggard (Back to Life, Episodes, Black Mirror). Executive producers are Blackwell, Addison, Freeman, Richard Allen-Turner, Rob Aslett, David Martin, Jon Thoday, Toby Welch (Catastrophe, The Tunnel, Skins) and Michael Wiggs. Tilusha Ghelani, Sky commissioning editor, is the executive producer for Sky. Ben Palmer (Man Up, The Inbetweeners Movie, Back) is co-executive producer and director of episodes 1-5, Dan Kay (The New Pope, The Salisbury Poisonings, Uncle) produces and Ollie Parsons (Man Like Mobeen, Hitmen, Revolting) is director of episode 6-10.
Episodes are available for press review Sky Screening Room.
For more information please contact:
Molly Wyatt on Molly.Wyatt@sky.uk and Dominic Collett on Dominic.Collett@sky.uk at Sky
UK Press Quotes on Breeders
beyond comedy and towards something rare...Writers Simon Blackwell, Chris Addison and Freeman himself have given us not only a couple we can honestly believe in but also a drama for modern times
Euan Ferguson, The Observer
terrific: dark, fresh, brutal, funny Simon Blackwell and Chris Addison have managed the near-impossible by creating a parenting comedy that is not twee and makes the tired tropes of sleep deprivation and school-catchment obsession funny.
Carol Midgley, The Times
For Breeders to deal with darker topics, including postnatal depression and what Blackwell calls grief sex , it adopts the knife-edge tone that defines the best modern TV comedy: able to nest real, wrenching drama into outlandish scenarios and vice versa, rather than offering viewers a predictable series of set-ups and positive punchlines
Tom Faber, Financial Times
Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard excel in parenting sitcom with bite Smart, spiky and hilarious
Morgan Jeffery, Radio Times
crafted to perfection, Blackwell supplies a steady stream of laugh-out-loud lines and Freeman and Haggard immediately gel as a finely tuned double act playing off each other with exquisite timing
Mark Wareham, Mail On Sunday
The parent-torment sitcom Breeders, now on episode three, No Accident', is beginning to emulsify nicely Breeders whizzes by, all zingers and howlers.
David Sexton, Evening Standard
Refreshingly truthful parenting comedy
Ian Hyland, The Mirror
a hilariously no-holds-barred look at the real challenges of parenting in the contemporary world a brilliantly shocking opening that sets the tone for a show, which is beautifully observed and very funny
Boyd Hilton, Heat Magazine
honest and uncompromising comedy pulling no punches as it explores the pressures of raising a family. Millions of mums and dads across Britain will sympathise prepare for laughs, tears and plenty of swearing
Sean Marland, TV Times Magazine
Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard impress in Sky's parental sitcom their tight-knit, witty bitching about rival, perfect schoolgate parents is a delight that never flags a triumph
Euan Ferguson, The Observer
a corker of an introduction uncompromising but hilarious
Mike Ward, Daily Star
last week's opening double-bill was full of wonderful lines and hilarious situations. In short, it was everything you want from such a show
Daily Star Sunday
Freeman and Daisy Haggard, who plays Paul's wife, Ally, are excellent as the couple whose united front cracks as sleep deprivation kicks in.
Victoria Segal, The Sunday Times
When the great corona-shutdown kicks in, the Breeders crew might find they've made the most accidentally zeitgeisty programme of all time
Victoria Coren Mitchell, The Telegraph
an unforgivingly accurate depiction of the lesser-spotted a
