Bea Ballard

Bea Ballard (born 29 May 1959) is a British television executive producer. She is Chief Executive of 10 Star Entertainment - a production company set up in 2009 with investment from Fremantle Media. She is the daughter of novelist J. G. Ballard.

Ballard co-devised a string of Saturday night entertainment programmes for BBC One, including How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? and Any Dream Will Do while Creative Head and Executive Producer at BBC Entertainment between 2003 and 2007

Ballard was educated at St David's School, Middlesex and read English and American Literature at The University of East Anglia, where her tutors included Malcolm Bradbury, Lorna Sage, and Angus Wilson. Following this she took a one-year post-graduate Diploma in Journalism at London’s City University. She completed this with Distinction, and won a scholarship to The New Statesman, where she trained as a reporter and researcher.

While Creative Head of BBC Entertainment Events, Bea Ballard put forward to the then Controller of BBC ONE, Peter Fincham, the idea of How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria. She successfully got the series commissioned, and off the ground. The programme was the first time that a West End musical had been cast via a television show, with the public voting on contestants drawn from open auditions held all over Britain. The programme has spawned other continuations of the format, such as Grease for ITV and NBC in America. The format is also being adapted internationally for a number of other musicals.

Following the How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, the BBC developed Any Dream Will Do, the search to cast the lead in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s West End production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

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