UTA’s Curtis Brown Launches Unscripted & Entertainment Rep Unit, With Ex-YMU Agent Martha Atack At The Helm

Jesse Whittock
·3 min read

The Curtis Brown Group is pushing into the UK unscripted space.

The UTA-owned agency, best known for its literary department, has created Curtis Brown Group Unscripted and Entertainment (CBG U&E). Former YMU agent Marta Atack has been hired to run the unit, which launches with several signings.

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CBG U&E will house clients from the entertainment, comedy, factual and digital spaces. At launch, they include Bradley Walsh, Richard E Grant, Sue Perkins, Zoe Ball, Carol Vorderman, Cat Deeley, London Hughes, Lenny Rush, Grayson Perry, Stacey Dooley, Asim Chaudhry, Layton Williams and Mae Martin.

New signings include actor and comedian Emily Atack, sister of Martha, plus Mercury-nominated musician Kojey Radical and radio broadcasters Yasmin Evans and Greg James.

Atack built a strong reputation in the unscripted space while at YMU before exiting last year. Her new company already has numerous entertainment, presenting, comedy and cultural thought leader clients in the space thanks to agents such as Jacquie Drewe, Debi Allen, Meryl Hoffman and Tiffany Agbeko, and will now super charge its efforts. It will also look to find unscripted and entertainment opportunities for Curtis Brown’s acting clients who are looking to push into new areas.

“The moment I met Martha, I knew she would be the perfect fit for CBG and our partners, UTA,” said Jonny Geller, CEO of Curtis Brown Group. “Her vision and energy will take one of the best performing parts of our business to even greater heights. We are so proud of what Jacquie Drewe, Debi Allen, Meryl Hoffman, Tiffany Agbeko and the team have achieved these past five years and look forward to providing more opportunities for the top-tier flight of UK talent who want to benefit from all the advantages of a full service international talent and literary agency.”

Atack added: “It’s a privilege to be overseeing a new era of Unscripted and Entertainment talent representation at Curtis Brown Group. The agents I get to work with every day are world class and I’ve never felt more confident in our collective ability to offer talent a 360-service across many areas of expertise.

“We will focus on multi-hyphenate talent who want to create and star in their own vehicles, as well as digital-first emerging talent, while tapping into CBG’s deep bench of unscripted IP and partnering with the best producers to develop premium unscripted, factual and entertainment content.”

UTA acquired Curtis Brown’s parent company Original Talent Limited in 2022, in a move that sent sent ripples through the UK agenting community. We recently revealed the Hollywood agency had paid $55M for the legacy UK talent group. Curtis Brown reps then likes of One Day author David Nicholls, the literary estates of Ian Fleming and others as well as a roster of film and TV clients including Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa and Robert Pattinson.

UTA and Curtis Brown this week held an upscale drinks event in central London to tie in with the London Book Fair. The likes of UTA President David Kramer and Partner and Co-Head of its Media Rights Group, Jason Richman, attended alongside Geller and top Curtis Brown agents such as Felicity Blunt.

With popular IP becoming evermore important to risk-averse commissioners, sources have reported an upsurge of interest in the Book Fair and various new novels hitting the market, both in the fiction and non-fiction spaces.

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