OUR TEAM
Claire PoyserManaging Director
Prior to joining Lime Pictures in May 2012, Claire was Director of Production for ITV Studios and had operational and budgetary responsibility for the delivery of over 3500 hours of original content across all genres each year. The programme portfolio included ‘Coronation Street’, ‘Emmerdale’, ‘This Morning’, ‘Jeremy Kyle’, ‘Prime Suspect’,‘Cold Feet’, ‘Poirot’, ‘Hells Kitchen’, and ‘I’m a Celebrity’.
Claire started her TV career at the BBC as a Floor Assistant working on a variety of programmes within the Drama and Entertainment Departments.
In 1989 she joined BFBS TV and spent the next 6 years travelling the globe making a variety of programmes for the UK’s Ministry of Defence before returning to the BBC’s Youth, Entertainment and Features Department as a Production Manager.
In 1998 Claire ‘crossed over’ from the BBC to ITV (initially as Head of Production for Entertainment and Comedy at Granada TV) and took on a variety of roles that culminated in her appointment as Director of Production in 2003.
Claire has an MBA from Manchester University Business School.
Kate LittleManaging Director
Prior to joining Lime Pictures as COO, Kate was Director of Business Affairs at ITV Studios. A key member of the ITV Studios Board, Kate contributed to the successful management of ITV Studios throughout her 6 years at ITV.
Kate oversaw deal making across the entirety of ITV’s output from ‘Coronation Street’ and ‘Dancing on Ice’ through to This Morning’ and ‘Jeremy Kyle’. She had responsibility for Business Affairs across ITV’s global content business, UK and International production as well as distribution. Her key global projects included ‘Come Dine With Me’, the US launch of ‘Jeremy Kyle’‘, ‘Prime Suspect USA’ and multi-party financed large scale drama co-productions such as ‘Titanic’ and ‘The Prisoner’.
Prior to joining ITV, Kate worked at the BBC with responsibility for Business Affairs across in-house production departments including Radio and Music, having previously headed up the legal team in Entertainment Commissioning.
A trained solicitor, Kate started her career in media at the Producers Industrial Relations Service, later the Producers Rights Agency, where she became Head of Rights, Legal and International Affairs.
Sarah TyekiffHead of Unscripted Programming
Sarah Tyekiff joined Lime Pictures as Head of Unscripted Programming in September 2017. Sarah has overall responsibility for the company’s flagship unscripted shows as well as driving new business opportunities with key networks.
Sarah joined Lime with a depth of experience in developing and producing major reality, factual, entertainment shows and live events with prominent success in engaging 16-34 year old audiences. As an executive producer Sarah has a proven track record of creating and developing successful formats, managing multi million pound budgets, rejuvenating brands, increasing viewing figures and getting shows re-commissioned.
Her most noted success was the re-brand of Love Island for which Sarah developed, cast and produed Series 1, 2 and 3, being awarded a BAFTA for Series 3. Tasked to specifically develop a show to engage a 16-34 audience for ITV2, Series 2 launched with 1.1m viewers, with 52% made up of 16-34’s, up 13 share points. Sarah is also credited with maintaining and growing the ‘I’m a Celebrity’ brand. Her last series, Series 16 was launched with over 13 million viewers. Tyekiff also developed the ground-breaking format for Red or Black, Simon Cowell’s £1m gameshow; coproducing with Simon Cowell and Ant and Dec. She re-wrote the I’m a Celebrity NOW! show format in 2009 growing the viewers back up from 400,000 to an average audience of 1.2m, with a finale of over 2m.
Sarah also worked closely with the interactive and social media teams at ITV: In 2016, the IAC App was the most downloaded App in the UK for 2 weeks, with over a quarter of a billion interactions for the live playalong game, peaking with 52m during TX1. Engaging social platforms with Love Island was key for the programme success and Series 2 of Love Island saw an increase of 348% on Twitter.
Louise SuttonHead of Drama & Young Adults
Louise Sutton is a BAFTA and RTS award-winning producer who joined Lime Pictures in 2018 as Head of Drama and Young Adults. Her appointment marked a return to Lime for Louise, where she began her career over 15 years ago working on Brookside, Grange Hill and Hollyoaks.
Louise most recently produced Butterfly (Red Productions/ITV), Tony Marchant’s story of one family struggling to cope with their trans child and prejudices against them.
Prior to that Louise produced two critically-acclaimed episodes of Black Mirror for Netflix: USS Callister, starring Cristin Milioti, Jesse Plemons, Jimmi Simpson, Michaela Coel and directed by Toby Haynes; and Metalhead, starring Maxine Peake, directed by David Slade. The former won 4 Emmys including Outstanding Television Movie for Sutton at the 2018 Emmys in the US. Metalhead also won the Bafta award for Visual Effects.
After 5 years on Coronation Street, including as Assistant Producer during its landmark 50th anniversary year, Louise was the first Series Producer of CBBC’s The Dumping Ground, which won a BAFTA, an RTS Award and a Writers’ Guild award. She went on to produce series ranging from Midsomer Murders, Home Fires and Jekyll & Hyde for ITV to BBC1’s Death in Paradise.
Bryan KirkwoodHead of Continuing Drama
BAFTA winning producer Bryan Kirkwood has been at the helm of Hollyoaks for eight years, stepping up to the role of Executive Producer and Head of Continuing Drama for Lime Pictures.
During his tenure Hollyoaks has received huge acclaim for dramatizing ground-breaking real-life ‘issues’ that matter hugely to a youthful audience, bringing them into people’s living rooms and starting vital conversations.
His vision of the show is delivering to the viewer huge gothic soapy plots where the audience think, ‘thank god that’s not me’, thrilling romances where the audience think ‘I wish that was me’ and serious issue-based stories where they say, ‘that’s me’.
Hollyoaks, which airs on C4 and E4, recently became the first continuing drama to tell stories about self-harm and sexual consent, winning 2018’s coveted industry Broadcast Award for Best Continuing Drama and four British Soap Awards.
A high-profile ongoing campaign #DontFilterFeelings, de-stigmatising mental health, has supported long-running stories about bulimia, anxiety and exploration of male suicide and depression, leading to the award of a MIND Media Award for the last two consecutive years for ‘accuracy and sensitivity’.
Bryan’s passion and commitment to diversity in casting and storylining led to Hollyoaks being named Stonewall’s Broadcaster of the Decade. This followed a succession of LGBTQ+ milestones including the decision in 2014 to make lead character Ste Hay the first gay male soap character to live with HIV. In 2016 he cast the first transgender actor in a trans role in 2015, Annie Wallace who remains at the heart of the show today as headmistress Sally St Claire.
Bryan embarked on his career in television at ITV, joining the network’s flagship show ‘Coronation Street‘. Over the course of six years with ITV he progressed through the ranks occupying the roles of Researcher, Storyliner, Script Editor and ultimately Story Editor.
In early 2006 Bryan began his first stint as Producer of ‘Hollyoaks introducing popular families such as the McQueens. In 2009 Bryan joined the BBC taking the role of Executive Producer on EastEnders which saw the programme win a BAFTA award for Best Continuing Drama and Best Soap at the British Soap Awards for both years of his tenure.
Tim ComptonCo-Head of Kids
Tim began his career at HIT Entertainment, developing, writing and producing animation. He was script editor for all indie dramas at CBBC, working across MI High and Grange Hill, and developing the multi-award-winning Roy with Jam Media. At Lime, Tim developed the Banff award winning The Well (BBC Switch) by Melvin Burgess and was story producer and core writer on the global hit House of Anubis (Nickelodeon). He piloted Rocket’s Island for CBBC, as well as the International Emmy-nominated Evermoor for the Disney Channel, the first UK live action series commissioned by Disney Channel US. Tim has written for Evermoor and the Netflix Original Free Rein, and has just co-produced two standalone specials of Free Rein with Angelo Abela, as well as the show’s forthcoming third season. In early 2019 Compton was confirmed as Joint Head of Kids for Lime Pictures alongside Angelo Abela.
Angelo AbelaCo-Head of Kids
Angelo Abela joined Lime Pictures in 2011 as Showrunner and Series Director of the multi award-winning House of Anubis, Nickelodeon’s first live action drama commissioned outside of North America. House of Anubis enjoyed three successful series securing a BAFTA nomination and the Nickelodeon US Kids Choice Award for Best UK show voted for by the audience. Following its success Angelo stayed with Lime Pictures to develop children’s projects alongside Tim Compton for all networks in the UK and abroad. In 2016 he developed the double Emmy award-winning Free Rein with Anna McLeery and Vicki Lutas for Netflix and then went on to produce/direct the series. Prior to joining Lime Pictures, Abela was an award-winning Comedian and Actor before moving into writing and then directing. As a Director/Producer he won awards for live theatre and across TV in Children’s, Entertainment and Drama - they include an RTS, Banff, Montreux and Broadcast. In early 2019 Abela was confirmed as Joint Head of Kids alongside Tim Compton. Their aim for Lime Kids is to deliver more shows to a global audience. He describes Lime’s dedication to elevating children’s television so it can stand alongside Adult Drama in scale and ambition as being at the heart of his vision. He comments, “we want to tell stories that resonate with our audience - to entertain and spark the imagination, shows that can make them feel, laugh and think.”
