EXCLUSIVE: British comedian and mind reader Peter Antoniou has announced a big set of tour dates for 2027.

From a childhood fascination with a tarot deck to performing for audiences around the world, Antoniou has built a career around turning the impossible into unforgettable theatre. His live performances combine comedy and audience interaction with moments of mind reading that leave crowds feeling as though they’ve stepped inside an episode of The Twilight Zone. No two performances are alike as Antoniou relies on the audience’s thoughts and secrets to craft the show.

Fresh off his nationwide Pretty Psychic tour, Antoniou’s new show, Peter Antoniou: Brain Teaser, pushes the experience further than ever before.

“This show is bigger, bolder, and more ambitious than anything I’ve done,” he says. “The only missing piece is your brain.”

Tickets will be available beginning with the Citi Presale on Tuesday, September 29 at 10 a.m. local time, running through Thursday, October 1 at 11:59 p.m. local time. They’ll go on sale to the general public on Friday, October 2 at 10 a.m. local.

Antoniou developed his craft through years of study with practitioners ranging from tarot readers and psychics to hypnotists, magicians, and psychologists. He’s repped by Val Sloot at Gersh and Brillstein Entertainment Partners. View his list of tour dates below.

PETER ANTONIOU: BRAIN TEASER 2027 TOUR:
Thu, Jan 14 Napa, CA at Uptown Theatre*
Fri, Jan 15 Monterey, CA at Golden State Theatre*
Sat, Jan 16 SLO, CA at Fremont Theater*
Sun, Jan 17 Ventura, CA at Ventura Music Hall*
Wed, Jan 20 Norfolk, VA at Attucks Theatre
Thu, Jan 21 Durham, NC at Carolina Theatre of Durham/Fletcher Hall
Fri, Jan 22 Charlotte, NC at The Fillmore Charlotte
Sat, Jan 23 Atlanta, GA at Buckhead Theatre
Sun, Jan 24 Lexington, KY at Lexington Opera House
Thu, Jan 28 Silver Spring, MD at The Fillmore Silver Spring
Fri, Jan 29 New York, NY at The Gramercy Theatre
Sat, Jan 30 Mckees Rocks, PA at Roxian Theatre Presented by Citizens
Sun, Jan 31 Philadelphia, PA at The Fillmore Philadelphia
Tue, Feb 2 Exeter, UK at Phoenix
Wed, Feb 3 Cardiff, UK at Glee
Thu, Feb 4 Bath, UK at Komedia
Fri, Feb 5 London, UK at Leicester Square Theatre
Sun, Feb 7 Bristol, UK at Hen and Chicken
Mon, Feb 8 Cambridge, UK at Junction
Tue, Feb 9 Leicester, UK at Y Theatre
Wed, Feb 10 Sheffield, UK at Leadmill
Thu, Feb 11 Liverpool, UK at Hot Water
Fri, Feb 12 Belfast, UK at Limelight
Sat, Feb 13 Dublin, IE at Ambassador
Sun, Feb 14 Manchester, UK at New Century Hall
Tue, Feb 16 Newcastle, UK at Stand
Wed, Feb 17 Edinburgh, UK at Monkey Barrell
Thu, Feb 18 Glasgow, UK at Glee
Sun, Feb 21 Vancouver, BC at The Chan Centre*
Thu, Feb 25 Denver, CO at Paramount Theatre
Fri, Feb 26 Minneapolis, MN at The Fillmore Minneapolis
Sat, Feb 27 Salt Lake City, UT at The Depot
Thu, Mar 11 Spokane, WA at Bing Crosby Theatre
Fri, Mar 12 Seattle, WA at The Neptune Theatre
Sat, Mar 13 Salem, OR at Historic Elsinore Theatre
Sun, Mar 14 Boise, ID at Egyptian Theatre
Thu, Mar 18 Tucson, AZ at Rialto Theatre
Fri, Mar 19 Phoenix, AZ at The Van Buren
Sat, Mar 20 San Diego, CA at Observatory SD
Thu, Apr 1 Anaheim, CA at The Grove of Anaheim
Fri, Apr 2 Los Angeles, CA at Wilshire Ebell Theatre
Sat, Apr 3 San Francisco, CA at Palace of Fine Arts
Fri, Apr 9 Tampa, FL at Tampa Theatre
Sat, Apr 10 Ft. Lauderdale, FL at Wells Hall at The Parker
Sat, May 1 Lancaster, CA at Lancaster PAC*
Thu, May 6 Dallas, TX at House of Blues
Fri, May 7 Houston, TX at House of Blues
Sat, May 8 San Antonio, TX at The Aztec Theatre

*Not a Live Nation show

This story originated as part of Deadline’s Comedy Means Business newsletter. Sign up here.

EXCLUSIVE: A Toxic Love Story producer Curious Films is moving into the live space with a new Boyzone concert film following the smash success of its Sky doc.

Last year, Boyzone: No Matter What became Sky’s most-watched unscripted series of all time and was the catalyst for the Irish superstars getting back together. Curious Films has subsequently produced a fourth and fifth episode showing Ronan Keating and co reforming and we can reveal has also recorded the band’s live concert from the Emirates Stadium, London, which took place over the summer and will air later this year on Sky.

The Boyzone: One for the Road live one-off is a first for a UK documentaries indie that has spent the past few years nurturing a reputation for making big true crime and pop culture hits for the streamers including Netflix’s A Toxic Love Story, and Hulu’s Welcome to the Family and Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth.

Curious boss Dov Freedman said the decision to make the live show “came quite late in the day” and involved a much faster turnaround than the London-headquartered outfit is used to.

“[The live show] was a refreshing addition to the retrospective work we do,” said Freedman. “We can spend 18 months or two years making crime documentaries, whereas the concert film had a much faster turnaround. It involved a different dynamic, different producers and different skills. We had around 40 staff working on it and shot it with about 25 cameras. It looked fantastic, and we’re definitely looking to do more in that space.”

Curious’ timing is good as the streamers double down on live content mainly in areas like music and sport. Netflix UK recently forged a commissioning team dedicated to live.

Curious’ “knew we had something” when it started filming the first Boyzone doc and the “pain close to the surface” from the band members became clear, Freedman said.

Things got even clearer when the band’s former manager Louis Walsh was interviewed and “they all had different perspectives on the same story.” Walsh has described claims made by band members in the doc as “fiction rather than fact.”

“The first time we got in a room with the band, we sensed that we were onto something,” said Freedman. “They were all going to be very honest, which felt refreshing.”

“Outsider perspective”

Curious is keen to do more live but will continue to mainly do what it does best, Freedman said, focusing on true crime and popular culture. It recently entered a new era following the departure of Freedman’s co-founder Charlie Russell, who has been replaced by the promoted MD Nicky Varley, someone who Freedman said has “played an important role in building our relationships with Hulu, Netflix and National Geographic.”

Curious’ approach in part over recent years has been to examine “big American ‘ripped from the headlines’ stories” and deliver them with “craft,” Freedman said. He reckons British docmakers have a particular sensibility, which suits this approach.

“We always saw America as a good opportunity,” he added. “This isn’t new – companies that came before Curious have been doing it much longer – but we believed our Britishness and outsider status could help us get access to stories that U.S. producers might not be able to access in quite the same way. That outsider perspective can also give us a different approach to telling the stories.”

Shows may have aired in the past about the subjects of Welcome to the Family or A Toxic Love Story, but Freedman questioned whether they were “made too quickly or reacted to events too soon.” “When we take on a story, we try to tell the definitive version,” he added. “That’s often about timing.”

In the case of these two shows it paid off.

Following a jaw-dropping revenge plot involving a newly-married U.S. Marshal and his ex-girlfriend, A Toxic Love Story has hit numerous Netflix top 10s since launching over the summer. Welcome to the Family, which tells of the brutal murder of law professor Dan Markel, has spent days as Disney+’s no. 1 show in both the U.S. and UK.

“If you look across Curious’s slate over the last couple of years we’ve been able to deliver large audiences at a time when audiences are fragmented and competition for viewers has never been higher,” said Freedman.

He said Welcome to the Family has kept the “very good” Hulu scripted series Furious off the top spot for a while now. “If you compare the cost of Welcome to the Family with the cost of a scripted series such as Furious, I think streamers and buyers are looking closely at the audiences that true-crime stories can bring,” he added.

Curious wants to double down in America and Freedman speaks with Deadline from L.A., which he will visit three to four times per year and says is “really starting to pay off.”

In the offing is another Netflix true crime series for early next year, which Freedman is keeping mum about, and a show about a “story I’ve always liked that people know, but they only know one side of it,” he added, intriguingly.

Freedman’s view on the docs commissioning landscape more generally is “mixed.”

On the one hand, “it’s harder than ever to get greenlights, competition is intense for stories that everyone knows are working, and buyers are making fewer bets each year.”

On the other, “documentaries have never been more popular or attracted such large audiences.”

EXCLUSIVE: The shape of distributor Banijay Rights is beginning to form.

One of the big distribution winners of the Banijay-All3Media mega-merger has emerged as Rachel Job, who we hear is in line for a senior content role, with long-serving execs such as Simon Cox, Claire Jago and Maartje Horchner exiting.

We also have news of of the Banijay international scripted division slimming down, where Denis Leroy has left his post.

Deadline understands Job, who was All3Media International‘s SVP, Unscripted, will take up an EVP-level post that covers both scripted and unscripted rights at the merged Banijay and All3Media group.

Banijay has been overseeing a consultancy process for staff in recent weeks, which is nearing completion. Various execs are exiting, with a full announcement on the shape of the business likely soon, possibly before MIPCOM.

We understand that Banijay Rights EVP Content Acquisitions Cox, EVP EMEA, Sales & Acquisitions Jago and Horchner, who was Executive VP Content at All3Media International, all took voluntary redundancy. We hear that Chris Stewart, Senior Vice President Of Sales UK & Eire, has also taken the voluntary redundancy package. Broadcast was first with the news of Cox and Jago’s departures.

Cox has been with Banijay since 2021 when it acquired Endemol Shine Group, where he had been Head of Acquisitions since 2015. Jago was also a long-serving Endemol Shine sales exec, while Horchner has been with All3Media since its very early days, joining back in 2004.

Today’s update comes after we revealed that long-serving All3Media International CEO Louise Pedersen was exiting following the Banijay merger’s completion. Cathy Payne is leading the new-look Banijay Rights. Banijay has previously said it will prioritize “eliminating duplication” in distribution and sales as it seeks €50M ($56.8M) in synergies within 12 months of the deal closing.

Job, a former History UK programming chief, has been with All3 since 2019. Her role has included working on All3 content and third-party acquisitions. Given the merged Banijay and All3Media business has more than 170 production labels, sources are speculating the focus going forward will be far more on in-house content.

At All3, Job has worked on shows such as The Traitors, Gogglebox and Cash Cab, while also being a key buyer of third-party shows. She has been across titles such as Michael Jackson: The Trial and Taylor Swift: A Love Story this year, along with Toronto breakout 2.6 Seconds: Death in the Outback, which Netflix acquired, as we revealed last month.

With a catalog of more than 265,000 hours, the new-look Banijay Rights team will be at MIPCOM next month with a slate including Channel 4 drama Maya and BBC legal series Reputation, entertainment format Last One Standing and a return for long-running factual series One Born Every Minute. It will also house The Traitors, Big Brother, Survivor, Fear Factor and Deal or No Deal under one roof. The company will operate out of a newly named ‘Banijay House’ opposite the Palais des Festivals.

Scripted Changes

Elsewhere, Banijay’s international scripted team, which makes co-productions between labels and sources IP, has been shrunk following the exit of Denis Leroy, and following Johannes Jensen shifting to a role within the Banijay Nordics team.

Leroy was Senior Director of the Banijay group scripted team, leading on the scripted format and literary IP strategy. He had been with the company for around a decade, and was with Zodiak Media before that, working across numerous projects.

We understand his exit came in the past few weeks. Jensen, who was Head of Scripted, Business within the same team, has shifted to a director of scripted role within Banijay Nordics.

This, we understand, leaves Steve Matthews, Banijay’s Head of Scripted, Creative as the sole senior member of this team.

When big beasts like Banijay are seeking synergies, one source suggested that roles like Leroy’s and Jensen’s, which tie labels together, tend to be under grave threat.

Having less executives bringing the labels together may make it harder to fund European, non-English language co-productions, which often rely on numerous producers, a different source speculated.

Banijay declined to comment when approached today. A spokesperson has previously said: “Since the merger has only just closed, we are not yet in a position to confirm Banijay Entertainment’s combined leadership team or organisational structure.”