Paul Abbott is one of a new generation of British television writers whose work owes much to the strong tradition of social realism in British television drama. His upbringing in the northwest of England, as the ninth of ten children in a poor working-class family, has clearly had a formative influence, yet the zest and vitality of series like Clocking Off and Linda Green belie the deprivations of his childhood.

Writing stories was a means of escape for the teenage Abbott and after having a story published in the local Weekly News he began to think he could make a living from it. In 1980 Abbott enrolled at Manchester University to study psychology but he didn’t give up hopes of a writing career, and when, in 1982, he had a radio play accepted by the BBC he decided to leave the university and concentrate on writing.

Abbott got a job at Granada Television as a story editor on Coronation Street and it was there, like many writers before him, that he served his apprenticeship, graduating to writing episodes for the serial in 1989. Given his background, the nuances of working-class life in Coronation Street were something Abbott could easily relate to. His upbringing in a large family also drew him to writing for and about children and his first televised script was for Granada’s children’s series Dramarama, an episode called “Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night,” written with Kay Mellor, who was also working on Coronation Street. Following this Abbott and Mellor developed Children’s Ward for Granada TV. The series, which Abbott had originally wanted to set in a children’s home, enabled him to draw on his experience of growing up in a large family and sharing a bedroom with seven brothers.

After working on Coronation Street for more than ten years Abbott decided to move on in 1994, producing the second series of Jimmy McGovern’s Cracker before writing two stories for the third series in 1995, one of which involved a psychology student stalking Fitz, the criminal psychologist played by Robbie Coltrane. The Cracker scripts marked Abbott’s growing maturity as a writer and saw him following in the footsteps of Mc- Govern, branching out from soap opera to series drama.

Following Cracker Abbott spent the next year work- ing on three serials, all screened in 1997, an unusually prolific spell for a writer in contemporary television. The first of these was the six-part romantic drama Reckless, starring Francesca Annis and Robson Green, which was nominated for Royal Television Society (RTS) and Writers Guild awards, followed by the four- part Springhill, a soap opera about a large Liverpool family, and the six-part crime drama Touching Evil, also nominated for RTS and Writers Guild awards. This period saw Abbott establish himself on ITV as a successful writer of popular generic drama—a talent much sought after by television companies increasingly concerned with maximizing audiences. After the limitations of the half-hour soap episode these serials enabled Abbott to extend himself with longer, original stories. A sign of his emerging reputation was that high-profile actors were attracted to his scripts; Peter Postlethwaite starred in the 1999 two-part police drama Butterfly Collectors.

In 1998 Abbott signed a two-year contract with the BBC and his first commission was the series that really established him as a leading writer of contemporary television drama, Clocking Off. Based on the lives of a group of workers at a textile factory in Manchester, with each episode focusing on a different character, Clocking Off was in the BBC Play for Today mold, serious single dramas about working-class life in the north of England. While its factory setting, working- class characters, and urban locations suggested social realism, Abbott’s stylish treatment gave Clocking Off an altogether different flavor. The series was highly ac- claimed, winning British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and RTS awards for Best Drama Series, with Abbott receiving the RTS Best Writer award for the series.

The first series of Clocking Off in early 2000 was followed by The Secret World of Michael Fry, an off-beat two-part drama starring Ewen Bremner, Abbott’s second drama for Channel 4 following the pilot episode for the 1999 series Love in the 21st Century. The move from ITV to the BBC and Channel 4 liberated Abbott, enabling him to broaden his repertoire and experiment with different styles, but the three-part BBC 1 serial, Best of Both Worlds (2001), about an air hostess with marriages in two different countries, was disappointing, suggesting that Abbott was less comfortable with mate- rial that did not arise from his own working-class experience. Linda Green (2001), by contrast, was an inspired return to form. Featuring Liza Tarbuck as the brash, uninhibited car salesperson, out for a good time, it marked a return to more familiar territory.

As if to prove his ability to deal with “serious” drama material Abbott spent the next two years work- ing on a major drama for the BBC. State of Play (2003) was a six-part political thriller, a genre with an illustrious history but little seen on British television since the 1980s. With a rapturous critical reception State of Play cemented Abbott’s reputation as a serious dramatist and, while the “human interest” story may have eclipsed the politics in an overly complex plot, it was enough of a success for a second series, this time concentrating on the investigative journalists, to be com- missioned by the BBC.

Also in 2003, ITV screened Alibi, a two-part drama that confirmed Abbott’s standing as a highly accomplished television dramatist. Essentially a crime thriller leavened with comedy, the three-hour drama worked well thanks to excellent performances from Michael Kitchen and Sophie Okonedo, two of British television’s best actors.

With Shameless, a seven-part autobiographical drama, also screening in 2004, Paul Abbott has established himself as one Britain’s most prolific and original screenwriters. His success may suggest that the days of the writer as an important figure in British television are not yet numbered.