Baz Ashmawy’s Darkly Comic Series ‘Faithless’ Is Picking Up The Irish Comedy Baton And Running With It

Jesse Whittock
·8-min read

Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track. So we’re going to do the hard work for you.

This week we’re heading the westernmost end of Europe to discover why Irish dramedy Faithless became a hit from a nation with a storied history of comic creations. Written by and starring Baz Ashmawy, known primarily for his TV travelogs and Sky’s 50 Ways to Kill Your Mammy, the darkly comic series charts how a widowed Irish-Egyptian father in County Wicklow attempts to raise three young girls, while exploring issues such as grief, gender roles, identity and acceptance.

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Name: Faithless
Country: Ireland
Producers: Media Musketeers Studios / Entourage Ventures in collaboration with Grand Pictures
Distributor: Abacus Media Rights
Network: Virgin Media TV
Where to watch: Acorn TV (U.S. and Canada)
For fans of: Fleabag, Catastrophe

The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have churned out many a contemporary comedy hit, from The Young Offenders to Derry Girls, and the latest to emerge from the Emerald Isle is Virgin Media Television’s Faithless. The series, from Baz Ashmawy, tells the story of an Irish-Egyptian man attempting to pick up the pieces of his family life after his wife is tragically killed by an ice cream truck. Left to raise three young daughters alone, his irresponsible younger brother moves in to ‘help’ as other members of his unconventional family rally round. The black comedy explores themes of grief, parenthood, gender roles, identity and acceptance, with the tough subject matter offset by the natural humor that can exist in tragedy.

“Everyone has been in a really dark moment and something funny has happened,” Ashmawy tells Deadline. “You know that some day you will laugh, but right now you’re heartbroken. That’s what I’m trying to show in Faithless – in the most awful moments is the most beautiful comedy.” The result is a “rawness” more akin to Catastrophe or Fleabag than Modern Family, he adds. “It’s not a straight comedy and it had to have balance. You had to feel something.”

The idea had been gestating in Ashmawy’s mind for over half a decade before it launched on Irish pay-TV service Virgin Media TV in late February. Raised as an Irish-Egyptian and now married to a half-Serbian woman, with Catholic and Muslim family members, his life had been a cultural melting pot. And though he’s known best in Ireland and internationally for his travelog programs such as RTÉ’s How Low Can You Go and International Emmy winner 50 Ways to Kill Your Mammy, Ashmawy has an acting and writing background. “I just wanted to show a mixed-race Irish family without it being too worthy,” he says. “I suppose I loosely based it on my life growing up mixed-race in Ireland, and my kids growing up here… There’s an advantage to me being mixed race. It allows me, in a world of people being politically correct about everything, to write in a real sense about what being mixed race means.”

After meeting with Grand Pictures’ Michael Garland (Ridley Road, Titanic: Blood and Steel), Faithless quickly went from an idea to the RTÉ development slate, where it stayed for 18 months. A two-minute teaser that acted as proof of both the tone and Ashmawy’s acting ability proved crucial. “Everyone in meetings would be saying the script was great, and would be smiling. You knew they were all unanimously thinking, ‘Can he fucking act?’,” laughs Ashmawy, who plays the lead role of unconventional dad Sam and writes alongside Mandy McKeon and Stefanie Preissner.

However, time frames didn’t work, and Garland took the show to Virgin Media TV, which had emerged as an RTÉ free-to-air rival after UTV Ireland was sold to Virgin in 2016. Distributor Abacus Media Rights then came on board followed by European production financier Media Musketeers. The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland bought into the potential and handed over €500,000 ($546,000) — the highest amount awarded during that round of funding.

Banshees of Inisherin casting director Louise Kiely was called on, and the likes of Amir El Masry (Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker, SAS Rogue Heroes), Suzie Seweify (Harry Wild, Peter Pan), Raad Rawi (Holby City, Tyrant) and Art Campion (Derry Girls, Peaky Blinders) landed key roles. The casting of daughters Lina (Suzie Seweify), middle child Layla (Noor Salem) and youngest Nancy (Carmen Rose Youssef) was critical — as young Irish females from mixed backgrounds, they were able to identify with the themes around identity and race. “They’d heard all of those familiar questions [that mixed race people experience, such as] ‘Where are you really from?'” says Ashmawy.

Garland recalls how the worldview and tone of the series immediately grabbed him, and was shared by director Declan Recks (Pure Mule, The Running Mate). “It’s a slightly skewed but very personal view about the way things are, and is relatable to all,” he adds.

Ireland’s TV production sector is small, with few scripted projects launching each year and only RTÉ and Virgin Media TV consistently active. That means shows have to be hits and the run up to Faithless‘ launch was full of trepidation for its creators. “Ireland is a great place to get crushed by people because everyone is waiting for you to fall,” says Garland candidly.

“I didn’t pretend something different to Baz when the show came out, and we certainly didn’t hide the fact our arses were out of the window here. It was sink or swim. When the reviews came in saying this is ‘Derry Girls but better‘ there was an exhalation. It was great. You have to stick to your guns if you want to succeed at a better level than ‘okay.’”

Reviews were indeed unanimously positive, with The Irish Times writing that Faithless “delivers zingers at a regular clip” and “has intelligent things to say about grief,” while The Irish Examiner saying it “feels like Derry Girls set in Bray and it’s just as good.” In Australia, where Abacus sold the rights to SBS, the critical reception was similarly adoring, and Acorn TV has rights in the U.S. and Canada.

Garland says Virgin Media TV had been pleasantly surprised by how broad the audience was — even over-indexing with young men. “Without being flowery about it, it is a cool show,” he adds. “It has to have been word of mouth.”

The success isn’t lost on the pair, who understand how tough creating TV is in a country of just five million people and two commissioning FTA broadcasters. Streamers are surprisingly inactive on the original scripted front, given Ireland is the country behind shows such as Kin, with Apple TV+’s Bad Sisters one of the few high-profile projects to date. The country is more often used as a shooting location thanks to its sweeping vistas, well-trained crews and the generous Section 481 tax break attracting overseas productions.

“The ATMs are very few and far between here, so co-production is the way forwards and that’s the way it’s going, but that means you have to have the universal story,” says Garland. “It should be hard or you end up with dross that kills everything off anyways. It’s natural selection.”

Ashmawy also acknowledges the trend of dramedy/comedy-drama has waned since the likes of Fleabag, Girls and I Hate Suzie were dominating the landscape, but says the themes of Faithless had, if anything, become more relevant to modern audiences than during those times at the end of the 2010s. “Dramedy probably was at its peak a couple of years back and is probably on a slight decline, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still do it,” he adds. “There seems to be an appetite for Irish-told stories. There seems to be the momentum and we’re getting on the tail end of that.”

Garland predicts Ashmawy has “enough in his head for three or four seasons,” and plans for Season 2 are well underway, with the existing co-production partners understood to be returning to the table and another UK network circling. Producers will return to the BAI and re-approach Screen Ireland, which didn’t back Season 1, and Ashmawy will take time to clear his schedule and write new episodes.

“All the pieces are there and it’s now time to coalesce again,” says Garland. “We’re in a good place because the proof of concept has been well and truly established.”

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