Succession, the inside story: could a few scruffy Brits write a glossy, high-end New York drama? Yes and no | Georgia Pritchett

When we started writing the hit TV series, we didn't think anyone would watch it

• This article contains spoilers about the final season of Succession

The pilot for Succession was filmed in New York in November 2016, just as Donald Trump was elected president. I was across the country in Los Angeles, filming an episode of Veep called Georgia, about the first free" democratic elections in the former Soviet republic where the opposition wins more votes than there are people. As we filmed our fictional characters listening to the results in disbelief, I stood in my I'm with her" T-shirt, listening to the real results in disbelief.

A couple of months later, I was prised out of my bottomless pit of despair (and my house) when Jesse Armstrong, who I'd worked with on various comedy shows in the past, asked me to be on the writing team for his new series, which HBO had commissioned.

Georgia Pritchett is a writer and co-executive producer on Succession. She has also written for shows such as Veep, The Thick Of It, Miranda, The Shrink Next Door and Smack the Pony