James Barber is a London-based writer with a bold, emotionally charged voice that blends humour, intimacy, and social commentary.
After cutting his teeth at the BBC on shows like Newsround and Live ‘n’ Deadly, James wrote and produced the award-nominated web series Flatshare, which premiered at WebFest in 2019, screened at Great Northern Expo and Sicily Web Fest, and was showcased at this year’s Pilot Light TV Festival. The series later made its TV debut on London Live for Pride Month and returns to the channel this spring.
James is currently developing a slate of original dramas including Catfished, a queer comedy-drama exploring fantasy, digital love, and self-perception; Sign On, a gritty workplace dramedy set in a South London Job Centre; The Love Compound, a psychological relationship thriller about empathy, desire, and control; and CTRL / The Inner Net, a political techno-thriller examining truth, manipulation, and power in the age of algorithms.
In 2020, James was selected from over 1,300 applicants to join HBO/BET showrunner Ben Cory Jones’s U.S. TV Pilot Workshop, one of only a handful of international writers chosen for Cycle 1. He continues to develop high-concept, character-driven television that explores connection, shame, and transformation through queer, working-class, and neurodivergent perspectives.
SIGN ON
(writer)
When an idealistic new advisor starts work at a chaotic South London Job Centre, he’s thrown into the lives of those society has forgotten, discovering that the welfare system isn’t broken, it’s working exactly as designed.
THE LOVE COMPOUND
(writer)
Desperate to save their relationships, three couples sign up for an empathy-rewiring experiment, but as their hearts and memories begin to overlap, love turns communal, identities dissolve, and the line between healing and control disappears.
CATFISHED
(writer)
When queer writer and hopeless romantic Alex Rivers starts a podcast investigating the man who catfished him, his search for truth turns into a deep-dive through obsession, fantasy, and the algorithmic circus of modern love.
CTRL / THE INNER NET
(writer)
When activist Iris Rowe and hacker Ash Mercer create a fake far-right movement powered by a self-learning algorithm to expose online extremism, their experiment spirals into a real-world uprising that propels populist leader Elias Thorne toward power. As riots spread and the algorithm begins generating its own propaganda, Iris and Ash have seven days to dismantle the network before democracy collapses under their creation.
FLATSHARE
(writer/producer)
Comedy drama web series. South London Artist Omar escapes his hedonistic lifestyle of anonymous hookups by starting a flatshare with his best friend Kemi and his ex Tom. However, it’s not long until things start to fall apart when they discover the Flatshare is an illegal sublet. First shown at UK Web Fest 2018.
*NOMINATED Best Comedy, Great North Expo
*NOMINATED Best New Web Series, Sicily West Fest
KELLY’S MISSING
(writer)
Conspiracy thriller. Performed as part of Nothing2Perform’s spring/summer drama season 2020, and broadcast globally online.
