Hetty took her MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College London University (graduated 2015). She also studied BA Philosophy Birkbeck College London University 1986-1990 and BA Fine Art Central St Martins 1999/2000.
TV projects currently in development with Hetty’s production company Palomino Productions Ltd
HOOKED
HOOKED written by Hetty Baynes with Adrian Shergold directing.
Palomino Productions Ltd in association with David Paradine Productions Ltd • Hetty Baynes • Wilfred Frost • Adrian Shergold • Michael Rosenberg OBE • Steve Tiller
TED LASSO meets SCHITT’S CREEK meets WHITE LOTUS
Hooked is a returnable comedy- drama series of 10 episodes. A feel good, funny and quirky black comedy; turning a darkly comic eye on the private angst and public meltdowns of our over stressed society, set in 2010 Marylebone, London; with the backdrop of potential austerity and economic chaos.
An irreverent look at addictive personalities in search of “The Answer”, creating the need for an ever-greater fix, how wrong they get it and how wrong it goes! The predators within our cult of celebrity, are on the make… like our devilishly salacious plastic surgeon, Dr Différent. The audience will fall in love with all the characters, as they get drawn into their crazy world.
We also have the metaphysical 'all singing all dancing' element, swinging in.
Two angels, fresh from The Big Shleep (rehab for the soul), here to help bring enlightenment to our characters: - The Shaker 27, our narrator and Angel of The North, a sort of Bronx, bourbon swilling version of the Good Witch from Wizard of Oz. Currently approximately 45 mins. We have episodes 1 and 2. Potential collaboration with Arri studios - virtual studios, to shoot this.
BAD DATES
MODERN LOVE meets LOVE LIFE meets LOUDERMILK
Comedy-drama television series. First season. 6 one-hour episodes.
Light romantic comedy with a dark undertow, exploring romantic relationships in the modern world. Our protagonist, Artist Katarina Fellows navigates her way to love throughout the series, as do her various ensemble cast. The members of LASSHB (Sex-Love Group therapy), her nephew Xavier and her dog Jack; we have a male narrator leading us through, we discover that he is her favourite, late Uncle Roderick, watching on from ‘The Other Side’. 'The Bad Date' changes each episode, until she has realised who ‘The One’ might be, by the end of episode 6, season 1.
The tone is jaunty and light, with surreal twists…but then dark waves will enter from sideways to bring insights along Kat’s journey; we coast in and out of her daily life and flirtations, at 60-ish she feels 40-ish, and still has the stardust from her certain ‘je ne sais quoi’! Kat lives with Jack her Shih Tsui dog, but her 49-year-old nephew Xavier turns up to stay for a few days and ends up staying longer. He is trapped in a cycle of only falling in love with ‘The One’, once the horse has bolted, or rather the ex-girlfriends, who get fed up with waiting for commitment, leave!
We get to know the members of the LASHHB group throughout the episodes, exploring their issues with themselves and relationships; this blends into a surreal arena showing them all as dogs and the group leader as a Crufts judge, for Best in Show.
Derek, group leader, benign and empathetic; Sascha, Ukrainian gay-male makeup artist for TV/films; Daniel 70 something academic, New Yorker straight; Simeon 60’s black, straight, high-flyer entrepreneur; Kylie, late 40’s very Kensington, hyper and hetero; Sammy-bisexual lost at 39/40 and desperate for the husband and family; Jed -binary…trying to work it all out. And of course, Katarina. Kat slips in and shares her past and present exploits with these eccentric individuals and as the series progresses, we enter into their worlds too.
There will be other moments of the surreal, the aim being to collaborate with, and use the virtual studios, ARRI STAGE London.
SEASON 2
Similarly to season 1, there are 6 episodes, this time, however, we will have a male protagonist. Kevin Abdul, an Indian raised in the UK as a good middle class British boy, who calls himself Coconut Shy. He is on a journey to find love with all the ups and downs involved. He will join the LASHHB group in episode 6 season 1 and continue as part of the group with the same characters as season 1.
We have the occasional visitation from Xavier at LASHHB meetings.
SEASON 3
We return to Katarina and Damien and everything in Kat’s world having moved on 12 months since end of season 1.
SEASON 1
Ep 1 THE SHMOOZER... (I like a nice clean, tidy house but no earplugs allowed).
Timo, South African retired CEO, carer for his mentally ill daughter.
Ep 2 THE POP-UP RELATIONSHIP (I am just a brain on a chair. Monk on a bunk).
Zeb, American writer, and University lecturer, reclusive and sexually and emotionally blocked.
Ep 3 SHAG 'EM AND SHOOT UP HILL… (Leave your mind at the door, just BE in your ‘animal’).
Corrin, cool dude late 50’s punk artist of the 80’s…living on his past credits, but stuck in S&M fantasy land, can’t be real in a relationship.
Ep 4. DOT COM-NON-MILLIONAIRE… (Why do other people manage to make millions from their internet businesses…and I don’t?)
Zandor, Danish, ‘wanna-be’ internet entrepreneur…sexy but damaged. Ends up living with Kat, but turns nasty; not really by design more by his default setting.
Ep 5 MARRIED-ON THE SPECTRUM... (I would have to give up too much, but admit, I live in a prison).
We discover that Kat has been having an on/off affair with married Martin, for nearly 10 years. A semi- retired lawyer, in his 70’s trapped in a false life, by his own admission…’ I am living in a prison’, but a victim to it, unable to leave. He is in a co-dependant , sterile and toxic marriage, and at the mercy of his greedy and selfish adult children.
Ep 6 THE STALLION RETURNS... ( Kat finds self-love. The men return, who will it be?).
All the various contenders return, offering Kat the commitment she had erstwhile desired. However, now she has had her own self realisations, each of the men had something of her own dysfunction; seeing them all like a mirror, that even if they want her now, she doesn’t want them. The only one she sees as not part of this is Damian…who has been hovering since episode 1. Ex lawyer, philosopher, divorced, extremely eligible, returns to woo her….
DON'T CALL ME DARLING
Feature Film-drama
THE RED SHOES meets THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE.
It is 1955. A large mansion in South Devon in the mid-fifties, a middle-aged woman, Guinevere Saxmundham, resides there. She has inherited the estate from her parents, on their deaths two years before, they were certainly Bloomsbury intelligentsia.
The Banks family enter the picture and take a lease on the mansion; a charismatic family with four children. Guinevere meets Genevieve Banks, and the die is cast.
We enter the family life 7 years later 1962, much has changed since the Banks' arrival.
The Beatles are playing, the world is changing but what we fall into and engage in is a family drama, full of deception, clandestine sexuality and betrayal. Helena, the youngest child, and a ballet prodigy, at 6 years old, rolls down a hill, and survives. She fell from a car. Did she fall or was she pushed ?The answer is key to our unravelling the puzzle of this story.
Domainey House, with its haunting magic, is certainly another character in the film.
This is a story of its time.
BOOKS IN DEVELOPMENT INCLUDE:
CAT, FUR AND ASHES, A MEMOIR
It is also the story about a career childhood in ballet from three years old, culminating in an exacting four years at The Royal Ballet School from ten. She had a very busy time as a young actress in the seventies and eighties, working with many famous people. It was certainly a wild time by all accounts, with tempestuous relationships with well-known actors of the day. It was on this TV film that she worked with the legendary film director the late Ken Russell, they fell hopelessly in love on the film set, married six months later; this began a whole new chapter of her life.
SKIP AND MR HEDGEHOG'S ADVENTURES IN RAINBOWLAND: Children’s book.
WINTER NIGHT-BLUE RAIN: Poetry anthology/ song lyrics/ illustrations.
THE CONSORT: Collection of short Stories
OTHER WRITING CREDITS INCLUDE:
THE INSATIABLE MRS KIRSCH- screenwriter- Film for Ziegler Production’s. director Ken Russell.
Script advisor to Ken Russell for TREASURE ISLAND Tv film for Channel 4; MINDBENDER - feature film; ALICE IN RUSSIA LAND- TV film.
OTHER PRODUCER CREDITS INCLUDE:
3 Audiobooks for Sound Understanding production company with Simon Callow narrating, Hetty producing.
COUNSELS FROM MY HEART by Dudjom Rinpoche- Shambala Publications.
GARLAND OF VIEWS by Padmasambhava and Jamigon Mipham.
MICHAELANGELO GOD'S ARCHITECT by William E. Wallace published by Princeton University Press.