Hot Picks: Mr vs Mrs: Call The Mediator

The behind-closed-doors meetings, which are designed to avoid a courtroom battle, are the subject of Mr vs Mrs: Call The Mediator, a three-part series for BBC2.

Produced by Wild Pictures, the indie behind ITV prison docs including Strangeways, the series gives an insight into an element of modern British family life rarely seen by others.

Contributors include Sue and Peter, who are divorcing but can’t agree on how their money should be split, after Sue left the family home for another relationship; and Jason and Vicky, separated parents who are struggling to share the parenting of their daughter.

The doc series was one of BBC2’s first fixed-rig shows and used a hybrid of rig and crews to film mediation sessions and the couples in their homes.

It aired earlier this summer and averaged 1.2 million (5.3%) over three episodes.

The show, originally titled The Divorce Clinic, is the latest divorce-based format to hit the international market after A Smith & Co’s The Divorce Hotel, which was picked up by US network Fox in 2012.

Mr vs Mrs: Call The Mediator is being distributed by Paul Heaney’s TCB Media Rights, which is hopeful of shifting the finished tape as well as tapping into the project’s format potential – having struck the show’s first format deal with an unnamed Danish broadcaster.

TCB head of sales Karen Connell says she expects the format to travel well: “It’s a brave, fly-on-the- wall documentary series that offers insight into the world of separation and divorce. Relationship and communication breakdown is a relatable subject and has universal appeal. “It will appeal to any viewer who has experienced a similar breakdown in communication and is relevant to anyone in a relationship who stands to learn from it.”