Exclusive: Independent TV producers say they discussed 2021’s Bank Job with the Welsh actor’s team and he later presented a similar programme

A team of independent TV producers who spent their life savings developing a documentary about the UK debt crisis, which they had pitched to the actor Michael Sheen, have questioned the originality of a separate project the Welsh star later made with Channel 4 on the same issue.

Lawyers for the film-makers Daniel Edelstyn and Hilary Powell have written to Sheen and the makers of his show Michael Sheen’s Secret Million Pound Giveaway, which aired three weeks ago, raising the similarities it bears with their 2021 project Bank Job.