A Little Late With Lilly Singh will debut Monday, Sept. 16, making Singh the only woman hosting a late-night show on the broadcast networks. Veteran producer John Irwin has come aboard as showrunner for the series, which is taking over the 1:35 a.m. spot Last Call With Carson Daly has occupied for the past 17 years.
The show will also have a gender-balanced writers’ room: The staff for the launch includes Sean O’Connor (The Late Late Show With James Corden, What Just Happened??!), Marina Cockenberg (The Tonight Show), Sergio Serna (The Late Late Show, Alternatino With Arturo Castro), Mona Mira, Jen Burton (Alternatino) and Jonathan Giles.
Singh and Irwin will executive produce, and Casey Spira, O’Connor and Sarah Weichel are co-exec producers along with the previously announced Polly Auritt of Singh’s Unicorn Island Productions. Ryan Polito will direct.
“I’m literally counting down the days until the premiere. It’s 53,” said Singh. “I’m thrilled to be collaborating with this all-star team of writers as we work to bring a new, authentic perspective to late night.”
Singh will be the only woman hosting a network late-night show when A Little Late debuts and one of just a few women or people of color fronting a late-night series anywhere on TV.
Irwin has run production company Irwin Entertainment for the past 15 years. He has executive produced a host of stand-up specials, including Adam Sandler’s recent Netflix special 100% Fresh and efforts from John Mulaney, Jim Jefferies, Norm Macdonald, Katherine Ryan and Nikki Glaser.
He also has a long-standing relationship with NBC, dating back to working on Late Night With Conan O’Brien in the mid-1990s. Irwin Entertainment has produced the network’s Red Nose Day specials — Singh starred in a filmed piece for the 2019 show — and New Year’s Eve With Carson Daly, along with the syndicated Robert Irvine Show and VH1 series Couples Therapy and Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew.
“I’ve been a huge fan of Lilly for many years, and her impact in media is truly remarkable,” said Irwin. “She brings a fresh perspective to the late-night space that is a breath of fresh air.”
Singh’s YouTube channel, ||Superwoman||, has more than 14.8 million subscribers as of publication time. A Little Late will combine pre-taped comedy bits with in-studio interviews; the show will have a digital-first strategy with content playing across a number of social platforms to engage a younger, more digitally focused audience in addition to its on-air viewers.
In announcing the show with Jimmy Fallon in March, Singh joked that it will be like her YouTube videos, but with “more than three staff members, and my sound guy won’t also be an extra and won’t also write the scripts.”
A Little Late is produced by Universal TV, Unicorn Island Productions and Irwin Entertainment.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
