Louis Theroux’s Mindhouse names Sophie Ardern co-owner & company director

L-R: Arron Fellows, Louis Theroux, Nancy Strang & Sophie Ardern

UK indie Mindhouse Productions has made its director of production Sophie Ardern a co-owner of the company.

She takes a stake in the firm, becoming co-owner and company director alongside Louis Theroux, Nancy Strang and Arron Fellows, who founded the factual prodco in 2019.

Ardern has been with Mindhouse since its launch, having joined from October Films where she worked across a slate of projects for platforms and broadcasters such as the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery. She has also served in head of production and production executive roles for The Ideas Room, Fresh One and Platform Productions.

Mindhouse is behind shows including Louis Theroux Interviews and Gods of Snooker for BBC Two, Joe Wicks: Facing My Childhood for BBC One, The Bambers: Murder At The Farm for Sky Crime and Sex Actually with Alice Levine for Channel 4.

Upcoming projects include a feature documentary about KSI for Prime Video, documentary series Gods of Tennis for BBC Two and the three-part series Lockerbie for Sky.

At the same time, Kate Pumfrey has joined Mindhouse as head of development, having previously worked for Twenty Twenty, Love Productions, MultiStory Media and Crackit Productions, with credits including David Harewood’s Why Is Covid Killing People of Colour? For BBC One and The Big Flower Fight for Netflix.

“Working with Nancy, Louis and Arron for the past three years has been a joy. Their energy and creativity are infectious; we make a great team and I look forward to growing the company with them,” said Ardern.