Moone Boy wins Best Comedy at The International Emmy® Awards

Sky 1’s Moone Boy has won the prestigious International Emmy® for Comedy, it was announced at the 41st International Emmy Awards Gala event held at the New York Hilton on Monday 25th November.

Writer and star, Chris O’Dowd, and co-writer Nick Vincent Murphy collected the prize and said: “Even in the wildest imaginations of our imaginary friends we never imagined we’d win an International Emmy. Such an honour.”

The series was awarded the prize in a category that included fellow nominees; eNCA’s Late Nite News with Loyiso Gola (South Africa), Workinggirls from Gazelle et Cie and Canal Plus (France) and TV Globo’s How to Enjoy the End of the World (Brazil).

Lucy Lumsden, Head of Comedy, Sky commented: “Moone Boy has been a tremendous success story, much loved by our customers and critics alike, and I’m delighted that Chris, Nick and the team have been presented with this richly deserved award. We absolutely adore this series and I can’t wait for us to pick up with the next stage in Martin’s life when the show returns to Sky 1 in the New Year.”

Adam MacDonald, Director of Sky 1 HD, added: “We are so very proud that Moone Boy’s home is Sky 1 HD. I’d like to congratulate Chris O’Dowd and Nick Murphy on such a warm, brilliantly funny and touching comedy series that everyone has quite rightly taken to their hearts. I’m delighted that we’ll be bringing Sky customers a brand new series early in 2014”

A joint venture between Baby Cow, Sprout Films, Hot Cod Productions and Grand Pictures, the first series of Moone Boy launched on Sky 1 last year. Set in a small Irish town in 1989, it follows the adventures of the youngest member of the Moone family, 11-year-old Martin (David Rawle). In order to survive life with his chaotic clan - mum Debra (Deirdre O’Kane), dad Liam (Peter McDonald) and older sisters Trisha (Aoife Duffin), Fidelma (Clare Monnelly) and Sinead (Sarah White) - Martin relies on his imaginary friend, Sean Murphy (O’Dowd) for company, along with best friend Padraic (Ian O’Reilly).

Moone Boy returns for a second series on Sky 1 HD early next year and finds Martin Moone in 1990 as he starts secondary school, navigates first love, school discos, Italia 90 and teenage life with his increasingly disordered family. Johnny Vegas will be back, with Simon Day and Amy Huberman also taking on guest star roles.

By 2014, Sky will invest £600 million a year in home-grown content across its portfolio of channels. This commitment includes programming such as upcoming entertainment quiz Duck Quacks Don’t Echo, dramas such as Moonfleet, The Tunnel, Dracula, A Young Doctor’s Notebook, Fleming and The Smoke, comedies such as Stella, Doll & Em, The Kumars and factual shows such as Karl Pilkington:The Moaning of Life, The South Bank Show, The Face and Ross Kemp Extreme World.



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