Everything I Know About Love: Q&A with the team behind the series

Join WFTV for a conversation with the creative team behind the new BBC series Everything I Know About Love: Director China Moo-Young (Pennyworth, Harlots), Commissioning Editor for BBC Drama Jo McClellan, and Executive Producer Surian Fletcher-Jones(We Are Lady Parts).

Created and adapted for screens by Dolly Alderton, the series is based on her internationally bestselling memoir of the same name. Set in a 2012 London house-share, with flashbacks to suburban adolescence in the early noughties, the series is an unflinching deep dive into bad dates, heartaches and humiliations and begs the question: can platonic love survive romantic love as we grow up?

In this event hosted by Simran Hans, the panel will discuss their roles in making the series, sharing their journey from commission to production and bringing the story to screens.

Everything I Know About Love continues on Tuesdays at 10:40pm on BBC One and all episodes are streaming now on BBC iPlayer.

China Moo-Young has most recently shot as leading director on Dolly Alderton's adaptation of her best selling memoir Everything I Know About Love for Working Title and BBC1. Prior to this, she worked on the sci-fi Intergalactic for Moonage Pictures/Sky, as well as directing an episode of Pennyworth, a DC Comic Book Batman inspired spin off for Epix/Warner Bros, and multiple episodes of The Rook, a supernatural spy drama on Starz.

China’s first television drama was Emo, written by Nicole Taylor for Channel 4's Coming Up season. Her television credits include Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Scott & Bailey, and Season 2 & 3 episodes of Call the Midwife, which became one of BBC1’s most successful television dramas.  

China has since directed episodes for the first season of Harlots, Humans and Spotless along with closing pioneering BBC3 drama Thirteen. China attended The National Youth Theatre before graduating from Bristol University in Film, Theatre & Television. She made short films, Liar and Juvenile.

Surian Fletcher-Jones started her career as a theatre director (working for the Tricycle Theatre amongst others) before making the move into television drama. She joined the BBC in 2002 where she worked as a Script Editor for many years, collaborating with writers including Andrew Davies, Peter Bowker and Adrian Hodges. She joined Scott Free UK in 2010, working as Head of Development for TV for two years before leaving to have a baby. She then joined Channel 4 Drama as Head of Development, working alongside Piers Wenger on projects including Cucumber, Indian Summers and The Mill. Surian is now Head of Drama for Working Title TV, and has executive produced We Are Lady Parts for C4 and Everything I Know About Love for the BBC.

Jo McClellan is a Commissioning Editor for BBC Drama. Since joining BBC Drama in 2018, Jo has worked on Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, I May Destroy You by Michaela Coel, US by David Nichols, The North Water by Andrew Haigh and Silent Witness. 

Jo joined BBC Drama from Seven Stories TV where she was Creative Director and Executive Producer on Selection Day (for Netflix, writer Marston Bloom, director Udayan Prasad). Prior to that she was Executive Producer at Sky, where she oversaw many projects, such as The Tunnel series 1 and 2 (Kudos/Canal+, show creator Ben Richards, starring Stephen Dillane & Clemence Posey), The Last Panthers (Warp/Haut et Court/Canal+, writer Jack Thorne, director Johan Renck, starring John Hurt, Samantha Morton & Tahar Rahim), both for Sky Atlantic.  She also Executive Produced many projects for Sky Arts including Birthday (Slam/Free Range, writer Joe Penhall, director Roger Michell, starring Stephen Mangan & Anna Maxwell Martin) and The Nightmare Worlds of HG Wells (Clerkenwell Films, directed by Adrian Shergold starring Michael Gambon, Luke Treadway, Rupert Graves). Before Sky, Jo spent ten years at Film4 in Development on films such as ‘Submarine’ by Richard Ayoade and ‘Attack The Block’ by Joe Cornish and as an Executive Producer for short films such as BAFTA-winners ‘Pitch Black Heist’ (starring Michael Fassbender, writer/director John Maclean) and ‘Dog Altogether’ (starring Peter Mullan, writer/director Paddy Considine) .

Host

Simran Hans 

Simran Hans is a freelance writer and broadcaster based in London. Simran has worked across print and digital media for 10 years. She writes about culture—mostly film, but also TV, books, music, art, fashion, food, and the Internet—in the form of profiles, reported features, criticism, essays, and branded editorial. Simran was a film critic for The Observer for five years, from 2017-2022, and is also a member of the London Critics Circle. Her writing has been published in The Guardian, The Observer, The New York Times, New Statesman, Dazed & Confused, Sight & Sound and many other places. Simran has created editorial content for brands including Amazon Prime Video, Kodak, Netflix, Penguin, Virgin Atlantic, WeTransfer and The Wing. She also writes an occasional email newsletter called Treats. The New Statesman called it “ever thoughtful and thought-provoking”. You can subscribe to it here.

Event Schedule:

18:25: Please join the webinar waiting room

18:30: Host-led discussion with China Moo-Young, Surian Fletcher-Jones and Jo McClellan

19:15: Attendee Q&A opens

19:30: Finish

How will the online event work?

This event will be live streamed via Zoom.us. Viewing details will be sent via your confirmation.

Attending participants will not be visible to others and will be muted throughout the session. After the talk, there will be an opportunity for audience members to ask their questions to the panel by using the Q&A feature.

If you are not a member and would like to join, membership costs just £100 + VAT/yr , please click here or email admin@wftv.org.uk

At WFTV we’re really keen to ensure that all our events are accessible for everyone. So if you have any particular access needs, please can you let us know before an event and we will do our best to accommodate you. We would be grateful if you can give us as much notice as possible – please contact admin@wftv.org.uk