Laurence Bowen

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Laurence J. Bowen is a British television and film producer. He studied at Oxford in the 1980s and started his TV career at BBC Scotland as a researcher and trainee script editor. He then helped set up the First Film Foundation to support new writers and filmmakers. In 1993 he moved to the BBC to produce Paradise for BBC2 and later became Head of Drama at Diverse Productions, where he worked on The Hello Girls, Stone, Scissors, Paper and Dual Balls.

In 1997 Bowen and Philip Clarke started Feelgood Fiction. He won a BAFTA for My Life as a Popat and received a BAFTA nomination for Suburban Shootout, along with other awards. Feelgood produced shows including The Hello Girls (Series 2), Badger, Miranda, Double Bill, The English Harem and George and Bernard Shaw, plus Gates for Sky UK. Gates was picked up for a US pilot, and a US version of Suburban Shootout was developed. My Life as a Popat was also picked up by Nickelodeon. Bowen co-created and executive produced these projects, and Feelgood’s Found was BAFTA-nominated while Lizard Girl won a BAFTA.

In 2016 Bowen launched Dancing Ledge Productions with backing from FremantleMedia and a development deal with Martin Freeman. They produced Porters for UKTV and later worked on The New Pope in the UK. Dancing Ledge runs a Writer In Residence program and a large mentoring scheme for new writers. They developed Netflix’s Delhi Crime, which premiered at Sundance in 2019 and won Best International Drama Series at the International Emmys in 2020.

In 2020 Bowen co-executive produced The Salisbury Poisonings for the BBC, a drama about the 2018 nerve-agent attack, which became a high-rating BBC launch and helped secure wide international sales. In 2021 the BBC commissioned The Responder, a six-part crime drama written by Tony Schumacher and starring Martin Freeman, with Bowen as co-executive producer. The Responder won Best Drama at the 2022 Edinburgh International Television Awards and earned multiple BAFTA nominations in 2023; Martin Freeman later won an International Emmy for Best Actor. Series 2 of The Responder began filming in 2023 and aired in 2024.

Dancing Ledge also produced Wedding Season for Disney+ and Crossfire for BBC1, and continued to win and be shortlisted for awards. The company has grown into a recognized independent production house with major projects and international partnerships, including plans to adapt US versions of Suburban Shootout and Gates, in which Bowen is co-creating and executive producing.