Writer and Producer Paul Abbott’s television writing career started on Coronation Street in 1983 and in 1988 he went on to co-create the drama series Children's Ward with Kay Mellor, which ran for more than ten years.
He produced the second series of Jimmy McGovern's BAFTA winning Cracker and went on to write on series three in 1995, which also won a BAFTA. Following this he wrote the drama serials: Reckless, Springhill, Touching Evil and Butterfly Collectors.
In 1998 he created the series that established him as a leading writer of contemporary television drama, with the award winning series Clocking Off. This was followed by The Secret World of Michael Fry, Linda Green and Alibi.
In 2003, to a rapturous critical reception the political thriller State of Play played out – and in 2008 was made into a Hollywood movie starring Russell Crowe.
Then came the multi award winning semi-autobiographical Shameless, now in production for its ninth series in the UK. Shameless has been remade in the USA starring William H Macy as Frank Gallagher. With rave reviews it is already filming a second series.
Paul has won various awards worldwide for writing and producing including: the BAFTA Dennis Potter Award for Outstanding Writing in Television, International Emmys and the Peabody Award. He is a visiting professor at Salford University, and Honorary Professor at Manchester Metropolitan University.
In 2008 Paul established his development company AbbottVision, which enables him to continue to write, mentor and work with new writers.
2011 continues to be busy with several new projects of his own, including the acclaimed BBC One drama series Exile starring John Simm and Jim Broadbent; and Hit And Miss - the first specially commissioned UK drama series for Sky Atlantic starring Chloë Sevigny.
Paul lives in Manchester.
About FremantleMedia Enterprises
FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME), a division of FremantleMedia, acquires, develops and exploits media content and brands around the world. Across 13 international offices, FME operates four main business areas:
- leveraging FremantleMedia’s own global entertainment properties to create additional revenue opportunities through international content distribution, new media and all forms of licensing, from consumer products to sponsorship, live events to gambling;
- working with some of the industry’s most prominent talent to create, finance and distribute globally popular drama, comedy, factual, entertainment and lifestyle programming for TV, home entertainment and online;
- partnering with top producers, networks, licensees and studios, with the ambition of becoming the world’s foremost independent provider of innovative kids brands and family entertainment across all media; and
- being a leading one-stop-shop rights exploitation business by finding and acquiring major third-party sports, lifestyle, celebrity and corporate brands, and developing them into global franchises.