Ephraim Lisk Signs Deal for Scripted Series Dr Abu: The Legacy

Create Anything has signed the award-winning actor, writer, comedian and digital creator to develop, write and star in Dr Abu: The Legacy, a new original comedy-drama series that expands his hugely popular creator IP into long-form scripted television.

The series, directed by BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Stewart Kyasimire (whose credits include Prime Video’s Four Kings and the BBC’s The Wedding), marks Lisk’s significant move into sustained acting and writing for the screen. In a performance-led showcase of range, Lisk will portray three principal characters spanning three generations and a 65-year age range: the teenage Ephraim, the iconic middle-aged Dr Abu, and the elderly Abu Senior. Each role demands distinct physicality, vocal technique, cadence and emotional perspective, supported by advanced age-transformation work developed for the production.

At its core, Dr Abu: The Legacy is a family story. It explores fathers and sons, expectation, identity, ambition and the complicated legacies one generation passes to the next — themes already central to the short-form sketches that built Lisk’s global audience. The tagline “Like Father, Unlike Son” captures the central tension: an egotistical African father relocates his family, while his teenage son seeks his own path, only for external pressures and buried history to force confrontation.

Create Anything has also secured a two-year scripted and unscripted development deal with Banijay UK, the powerhouse whose portfolio includes Peaky Blinders. Promotional material alone generated 4.2 million cross-platform views in its first seven days an early indicator of the strong audience appetite for the project before any completed episode has been released.

Lisk first rose to prominence through the Dr Abu character, whose performance-driven content has amassed billions of views and a dedicated international following of millions. His background as a professional footballer (Queens Park Rangers and Aldershot) and competitive sprinter continues to inform the discipline and physical control he brings to the work. In 2024 he was named Best Influencer Actor in the UK, and he has already expanded into brand partnerships, entrepreneurship and international speaking.

This deal represents a natural and ambitious next chapter: taking a character that began as viral short-form comedy and building a richer, multi-generational scripted world around it. For Lisk it is both a creative leap and a commercial one moving from digital creator to lead actor-writer on a series backed by established production and distribution muscle.