Katy Brand has become the latest high profile name to join Merman: the production company set up by Sharon Horgan and producer Clelia Mountford.

The company was founded in 2014 after Horgan and Mountford met working on The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. The company has already produced some outstanding work: including Sarah Pascoe’s Funny Valentine short for BBC iPlayer, two editions of Sky’s Little Crackers series, plus the third season of …Todd Margaret. Oh, and a little Bafta winning thing called Catastrophe which you probably haven’t heard of…

And the talent pool behind it is growing rapidly, with the likes of David Cross, Rob Delaney, Dennis Kelly, Shaun Pye, Mark Chappel, Jack McBrayer, Sarah Jessica Paker (whose new HBO show, Divorce, is also a Merman production), the aforementioned Sara Pascoe and TVO’s very own Aisling Bea.

Now the team have announced two new additions to their family: Daniel Walker – formerly of management company 42 – is their new Head of Drama Development; whilst Katy Brand will become Comedy Development Consultant.

Clelia Mountford – whose other production work includes last year’s Cockroaches as well as Mr Sloane and the award winning A Young Doctor’s Notebook – said of the appointments: “We are thrilled to see the Merman family growing with the addition of Katy and Daniel, who are both incredibly talented and inspiring to work around. It’s a privilege to have such an informed and dynamic development team onboard as our adventure continues and we can’t wait to make even more of the shows we love… and of course we’re expecting a few laughs along the way!”

The next projects from Merman are Channel 4 comedy pilot The Circuit, which reunites writer Sharon Horgan with her Pulling co-writer Dennis Kelly; and BBC Two pilot Motherland, written by Horgan with Holly Walsh (Dead Boss), Graham Linehan and Helen Linehan, with Graham directing. Sharon is also developing a project with Aisling Bea about a woman trying to find her biological father. As always, as soon as we have more on all three of these projects, we’ll let you know.