British studios shoot for ReelShort. UK rules are written for 20-minute episodes

On 15 September, Lime Pictures announced the cast of Revenge Is A Dish, its first vertical drama. Lime is the Liverpool company behind Hollyoaks. The series streams on EPIS, an app that RoseBerry Media launched in July with more than 100 titles. Angelo Abela, Lime's co-head of scripted, kids and family, directed it.

He described the format in soap terms. Verticals, he said, "require pacey storytelling, huge hooks and from cast and crew, the ability to shoot a high volume of high-drama scenes, with limited rehearsal time."

Lime arrives in a market where British crews say they have worked since 2022. Most of them work for apps based in the United States and China.

The London crews already in the credits

Onset Octopus is a London studio. Its site says producer Ben Pengilly "has successfully produced hit vertical mini-series such as Mafia Lover and The Mafia Obsession, both of which have been released on Dramabox". The same page credits director Dan Lowenstein with Pride & Prejudice and British Bad Boy for ReelShort. It also lists Queen of Vengeance for DramaWave.

In February, Deadline reported that the company "claims its series have amassed 86 million views worldwide". The figure is the studio's own. No platform has published one for those titles.

Moonshine Vertical is the vertical arm of the London company Moonshine Film. It says it has delivered short-form series "since 2022". It calls itself "Trusted by ReelShort, Dramawave & FlexTV platforms." Its page lists Here Comes Mr. Right for DramaBox and My Hired Boyfriend is a Billionaire for NetShort. It adds Bossed and Tossed for DramaWave, Mafia Diva for FlexTV, and four titles for the Chinese studio Linmon.

Britain has one home-grown app. Tattle TV comes from EMC Productions, run by Philip McGoldrick and Marina Elderton. It launched in January with Dog Dates and Tramp. In April, TVBEurope reported that it ran on iOS only, with Android planned. McGoldrick built it himself in about six months.

Elderton told TVBEurope why the couple, who met at film school and had been making features and branded content, moved to the format. "We saw they were making waves in China and the United States, and at the same time, we were witnessing all the struggles of our fellow filmmakers in the industry, just things crumbling, and people out of work. We thought, what about vertical video for the UK?" She also said what they want the catalogue to avoid: "It's not just these kinds of archetypal billionaire CEO microdrama stories. We want it to be broader than that." The app mixes microdramas, reality programmes and feature films, and is testing uploads from users.

Deadline wrote the same month that the British scene "remains nascent", with "a single locally-operated app". In that April piece, Onset Octopus announced Cowboy Before Dark. It said it would finance the series itself for international distribution. The director is paid a share of sales.

The crews are British. The apps that commission them are not.

What the tax credit asks of an episode

British scripted television is financed partly through the Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit, or AVEC. For live-action drama, the category that matters is high-end television. HMRC sets two extra conditions for it in its manual.

The first is length. "The programme must be commissioned to fill a slot length of more than 20 minutes per episode." The test "is applied on an episode-by-episode basis". One short episode fails the whole series, even if the average runs above 20 minutes.

The second is cost. "The average core expenditure per hour of slot length in relation to the programme must be at least £1 million." The amount is pro-rated. HMRC's own example: a 45-minute slot needs £750,000. The BFI guide to certification repeats both lines. It gives the rate for high-end television: 34%.

Apply both tests to the format. A microdrama episode runs one to three minutes, so a series of sixty two-minute episodes adds up to two hours of slot length. At the pro-rated threshold of £1 million an hour, that series would need £2 million of core spend on pre-production, shooting and post-production. The American union's vertical contract, by contrast, applies to productions with budgets under $300,000. Even a series that met the spending test would fail on length: each of the sixty episodes would still fail the length test on its own, and HMRC applies that test episode by episode.

Two categories escape. The HMRC manual says that "animated programmes and children's programmes do not need to meet these extra conditions". The BFI guide lists no minimum length or budget for either, and a higher rate of 39%. An animated vertical, or one made for under-15s, is not blocked by length. The romance and revenge titles that fill the ReelShort and DramaBox charts are neither.

The development fund says no in writing

Before a tax credit comes development money. The BFI's scheme for new talent, BFI NETWORK, addresses the format in its FAQ.

The question reads: "Can you fund episodic projects like a TV series or microdrama for online release?" The answer: "Our funds can only support standalone fiction projects, and cannot fund episodic content or projects that form part of a larger narrative arc like a pilot for a TV or web series."

The word microdrama is in the BFI's question. It is absent from the answer.

The union rate exists, in Los Angeles

In the United States, SAG-AFTRA answered the format in October 2025 with a Verticals Agreement. Deadline quoted the union: the contract "covers productions with budgets under $300,000".

Variety gave the rates: "$250 a day for lead performers, $164 for everyone else". The contract adds overtime, pension, health, and protections for stunts and sex scenes. In the same article, Alex Amsellem of GoodShort said that "for most vertical companies, it is not usable."

Equity, the British actors' union, has published nothing on vertical or microdrama work that this site could find for 2025 or 2026. The nearest reference is the Pact/Equity agreement for cinema films, whose rates were raised on 6 April 2026. The new rate card is published to Pact members only. A search that finds nothing proves little. Equity has not yet been asked for this piece.

Who is asking for a British framework

In May, the newsletter Microdrama UK framed the choice. Britain could "either build the infrastructure to compete, or become a service stop for platforms, producers and buyers from elsewhere." It asked for rules on intellectual property, performers' likeness, AI and revenue sharing. It asked for standards on crew hours and safety. The newsletter carries no author's name.

The same month, the founder of Tattle TV announced a British Vertical Microdrama Association on LinkedIn. It listed four aims, including "Industry recognition" and "UK tax relief & advocacy". No public page for the association could be found.

My view: none of this is policy yet. Nothing in HMRC's manual or the BFI's guide points to a change. What exists today is a set of rules written for a 20-minute episode. Next to it, a growing number of London crews make episodes that last two.

What Lime changes

Onset Octopus and Moonshine sell their crews to foreign apps. Lime is a different kind of entrant. It has more than 30 years of continuing drama behind it and its own post-production partner, L16 Studios. Abela's statement also promises "duty of care to all". British broadcasters use that phrase. Vertical producers rarely do.

Revenge Is A Dish streams on EPIS, which RoseBerry Media runs from Britain. Tattle TV is the other British app this site has found. Neither has published a viewing figure.