The secret to why Sharon Horgan is laughing all the way to the bank

“I lived in Camden for six years and I sold bongs part-time for two of them,” she told Time Out magazine in 2018. “We sold everything from basic pipes to works of art. Kids would come in and spend their student loan on ridiculous contraptions.”

No doubt Horgan’s 27-year-old self could never have foretold what would happen next. During her time in Camden, she began unknowingly gathering material for her first series, Pulling, about three young single women. After teaming up with writer Dennis Kelly, the pair sent sketches to a BBC producer, and the rest is a rollercoaster.

Last month it was reported that Merman Television, Horgan’s TV and movie production firm, recorded combined revenues of £50.9m (€59.2m) across 2021 and 2022. To put this figure into perspective, it’s been reported online that the annual revenue of Working Title Films, which has created hits such as Love Actually and Bridget Jones’ Diary, is in the region of $8m. The accounts, lodged with Companies House in the UK, show that Horgan’s group recorded post-tax profits of £430,223 (€500,484) and revenues of £23.07m (€26.83m) for 2022. Much of the success of the company, co-founded with Clelia Mountford and Horgan’s ex-husband Jeremy Rainbird, is down to global TV series including Bad Sisters, Motherland, Divorce and Catastrophe.

Fans of Horgan’s TV shows will no doubt attribute much of her success to her observant, funny writing. Yet she’s far from the only person writing hilariously about imperfect women in imperfect situations — so how has she managed to hit on such a winning formula? How much of it lies in astute writing, and how much of her success has to do with the time and place in which it arrives?

“I think there are a couple of different features to her popularity and her success that are interesting,” says Diane Negra, professor of film studies and screen culture at UCD. “She has been very canny about understanding changes in the global television market, and is able to position herself well within that changing market.”

Anthony McIntyre, film studies lecturer at UCD and author of Contemporary Irish Popular Culture, says that Horgan has always been “driving the zeitgeist”.

“I think post-Me Too, there has been an appetite in the US networks in particular to be visibly engaging with women and creative roles and making female-centric content,” he says. “She’s also been cleverly working on different series and spanning different genres — you’ve got the horror genre mix in Shining Veil [a Horgan co-creation], and then this dark comedy drama in Bad Sisters. This blending of genres seems to be more welcome and sought after in the current moment.”

Horgan has long been astute in exploring topics like parenting, pregnancy, sexual assault, alcoholism and mental illness.

“The essence of her writing seems to be exploring ‘bad’ feelings and then dealing with them in a comedic form,” says McIntyre. “You get that right off the bat with Pulling, which starts with a woman deciding that maybe she won’t go into the marriage that she is about to. It deals with the good life not being the good life it was expected to be, and rolling with those punches seems to be one of the grand themes in her work.”​

Sharon Horgan thanks all the mammies during BAFTA speech for best drama series

Negra adds: “The emphasis that, say, Bad Sisters has on some version of feminism, on female agency, as women as supporters of one another — that’s the version of feminism that we’re most comfortable with now in our culture. It’s true to say that a lot of her vision as showrunner has to do with middle-class women’s dilemmas and prospects. She’s very willing to not take a sort of simplistic view of middle-class women’s lives. She’s interested in the really intransigent problems that still do stick around in many ways.”

The rise of streaming platforms may well have had a hand in Merman’s international success. In 2019, Horgan cut a ‘first look’ deal with the streaming giant Apple, which covers all of her future projects.

“The way that global television is functioning opens a pathway for someone like Horgan to experience a realm of international success they probably wouldn’t have before,” says Negra. “She is probably creating a model that others will follow, in terms of her commitment to a high level of creative authority in her work and looking for ways to maintain ownership in her work. “Whenever I’m not in Ireland, people always ask me about Bad Sisters. Everybody seems to have seen it, and it seems to have brought Horgan’s [reputation] to a different level,” Negra says.

McIntyre agrees. “With the rise of streaming, certainly there seems to be an appetite for things that are transnational, that aren’t necessarily only set in the US. I think after Normal People, there has been an appetite for an Irish drama like Bad Sisters to come along.”

Horgan has also spoken about making sure her shows look good on screen.

“Even if you look at a show like Frank of Ireland [produced by Merman], which is maybe a slight work, it’s still beautifully shot,” McIntyre says. “It’s also the thing that Apple is known for — if it’s got a calling card of its own in the streamers space, it’s that it does these very high production values, very well. This aesthetic approach seems to be key [in Merman’s success] — it’s not about cranking out the comedies one after the other.

“I think Horgan does like there to be a certain quality to the work she’s involved with, alongside the very quality, complicated writing.”

Off-camera, Horgan’s personal brand — a charismatic, approachable everywoman — has doubtless served her well in business too.

She has a strong reputation among other film-makers. TV director Declan Lowney has directed commercials for Merman and hasn’t worked directly with her, but “sure would love to”.

“She brings an honesty and a truth to the stuff she does that just makes her jump off the screen, and is so refreshing these days. That’s the sort of stuff that people really want to see right now — personal stories that are honest and really engage the audience,” he says.

Horgan certainly has a knack of aligning herself with other talents, and unearthing new voices. She was an executive producer (and co-star) on actress/comedian Aisling Bea’s well-received This Way Up, and produced Herself, co-written by and starring Irish actress Clare Dunne.

“She always sends the lift back down for others,” Dunne told the Business Post in 2020. “She’s generating stuff all the time, and you learn an awful lot from just being around her. In group discussions, Sharon is always first to talk about the elephant in the room. And everyone will die laughing with the relief that someone finally said it. She has an insane work ethic — it could power an entire city.”

Horgan’s hot streak looks set to run and run. Next, she will feature in the new Amazon Prime series Mr & Mrs Smith, starring Maya Erskine, Donald Glover and Paul Dano. According to IMDb, an untitled TV series is in pre-production with Amazon, and, of course, the second season of Bad Sisters will air this year.

“Horgan has moved into a producer role which means she’s able to set up series that essentially run on by themselves,” McIntyre says. “She’s very adept at giving a hand up to other artists. This idea of gathering together like-minded people seems to be at the heart of her production company as well.”