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Comedian Harry Deansway’s infringement case against Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow production company goes to trial. Variety I can confirm.
Numerous attempts to reach an out-of-court settlement failed and a trial date was tentatively set for October 2024.
Deansway, whose real name is Joshua Rinkoff, filed a lawsuit against Baby Cow last year in the U.K. High Court, alleging that the production company’s comedy director, Rupert Majendie, had copied the format of its YouTube show “Shambles” to develop the stand-up series “Live at the Moth Club.”
Majendie is the creator of “Live at the Moth Club,” which aired on UKTV in December 2022, and is also credited as executive producer and director.
“It’s extremely disappointing that my friend Rupert Majendie, comedy director of Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow, has copied my original work in this way without so much as a courtesy call,” Deansway said. Variety in a sentence. “That a friend and industry collaborator did it is deeply sad. What makes it so much worse is that in standing up for my principles I have to come face to face with the comedy idol of all comedians, Steve Coogan. I can’t help but wonder how he would have felt if someone had copied one of his early characters. when it was just starting out and then tried to claim that it was perfectly legal. “I have been surprised and dismayed by Baby Cow’s denial strategy when, in my opinion, the program has been so obviously copied.”
Keystone Law media litigation partner Lawrence Abramson represents Deansway in the proceedings.
“Shambles,” which featured appearances by comedians including Aisling Bea and Dan Schreiber, launched on YouTube in 2013 and ran for two seasons. According to Deansway, “Live at the Moth Club” has many similarities to “Shambles,” including characters, stories, jokes and settings.
A representative for Baby Cow, which is majority owned by BBC Studios, did not respond to Varietyrequest for comment on the move to trial before the time of publication, but after Deansway filed the lawsuit last year, a prodco spokesperson said. Variety: “We strongly reject this statement, which has no legal basis.”
The production company, which Coogan founded with producer Henry Normal in 1999, is also currentand defending another lawsuit brought to you by historian Richard Taylor. Taylor is suing Baby Cow, Coogan and Pathe Productions over what he says is an unflattering depiction of him in the 2022 film “The Lost King.”
