Paul Abbott
Abbott in September 2011
Born	(1960-02-22)22 February 1960 (age 65) Burnley, England
Occupation	Screenwriter producer
Period	1982–present (as of 2021[update])
Spouse	Sheila Culf ​ ​ (m. 1981; div. 1983)​ Saskia Downes ​ (m. 1993)​

Paul Abbott (born 22 February 1960) is an English screenwriter and producer. He became one of the most successful television writers in Britain following his work on popular series such asCracker (1995, 1996, 1999) andCoronation Street (1987–1989, 1991–1993), and would become more widely known for creating some of the most acclaimed television dramas of the 1990s and 2000s, includingReckless (1997),Touching Evil (1997–1999),Clocking Off (2000–2003),State of Play (2003),Shameless (2004–2013), andNo Offence (2015–2018).

Abbott was born into a dysfunctional family inBurnley on 22 February 1960,^[1] the seventh of eight children.^[2][3] When he was nine, his mother left to pursue a relationship with another man who had a child around Abbott's own age; his father, whom Abbott described as "bone idle", departed two years later. His mother had supported the family with three jobs. Abbott and his siblings were left in the care of their pregnant 17-year-old sister.^[3] His father did not claim benefits for the family for fear of alerting social services to their abandonment.^[2] Although he constantly skipped school, Abbott later cited his English teacher atBarden High School as an early positive influence on him.^[3]

Abbott was raped by a stranger at the age of 11, leading to him jumping from the roof of a multi-story car park in an attempt to take his own life.^[2][3] Two years later, after another suicide attempt, he was committed to an adult mental hospital; he later became a voluntary patient.^[3] On his release, he was taken into foster care and placed with a much more settled working-class family, where having two parents who held steady employment and owned a television and car was a new experience for him. At the same time, he began attending a localSixth Form College and started attending meetings of the Burnley Writers' Circle after seeing their advert in the local public library.^[4] He enrolled at theUniversity of Manchester in 1980 to study psychology, but decided to leave to concentrate on writing when a radio play he wrote was accepted by the BBC.^[5]

Abbott entered theRadio Times drama competition at the age of 22 which had the requirement to find a professional sponsor. A contact knew the address of the leading British dramatistAlan Bennett who, after seeing his script, was of the opinion that Abbott had written a perfectly acceptable piece of work which he would be happy to endorse. His work onradio plays forBBC Radio 4 attracted the attention of producers atGranada Television who hired him, at age twenty-four, to be ascript editor on their long-running soap operaCoronation Street. This made him at the time the youngest-ever person to occupy such a role on the programme.

He worked onCoronation Street for the next eight years as a story editor and from 1989 as a writer. He also worked on other programmes for Granada. In 1988, he co-wrote his first televised drama script, a one-off play for theDramarama anthology, with fellowCoronation Street writerKay Mellor. The same year, he and Mellor co-created the children's medical dramaChildren's Ward, which ran for many years—Abbott regularly contributed scripts until 1992, then returned briefly to the show in 1996.

In 1994, he worked as the producer on the second season of Granada's drama seriesCracker, about the work of a criminal psychologist played byRobbie Coltrane. The following year he switched to writing scripts for the programme and wrote several episodes. He made his first breakthrough with a programme of his own creation, the police drama serialTouching Evil in 1997. The series, starring popular actorRobson Green, was a success, and two sequel serials—although not written by Abbott—followed. Most recently, in 2004, the series was re-made for American television by theUSA Network.

After writing another serial starring Green,Reckless and a few other productions for Granada, he began in 1999 a collaboration with the independentRed Production Company. He contributed an episode to their anthology seriesLove in the 21st Century, screened on Channel 4, and in 2000 created and wrote the seriesClocking Off for them, which was screened on BBC One. Set in one factory in Lancashire, the series focused on a different member of factory staff each episode. The first season won theBAFTA award forBest Drama Series, and the equivalent at the Royal Television Society awards; Abbott personally was recognised with the RTS Best Writer award.Clocking Off ran for four seasons, although Abbott's contributions to the final two runs were minimal as he was by this time busy working on other projects.

In 2001, he created another Red series screened on BBC One, the comedy-dramaLinda Green; although this was somewhat less successful and ran for only two seasons before cancellation. In 2000, he was due to adapt theD. H. Lawrence novelSons and Lovers as a four-part television serial but pulled out due to work commitments.

2002 saw Abbott experimenting with a new genre when he wrote the political thrillerState of Play, which was directed byDavid Yates and produced for the BBC byHilary Bevan-Jones. In late 2003, Abbott and Bevan-Jones founded their own independentproduction company,Tightrope Pictures, based inSoho, London.^[6][2]

In early 2004,Channel 4 screenedShameless, a new Abbott series very loosely based on his experiences and family life growing up in Burnley,^[7] although the action of the programme itself was changed toManchester in the present day. At the 2006British Academy Television Awards, he was given the honoraryDennis Potter Award for Outstanding Writing in Television, and in July of the same yearRadio Times magazine placed him at No. 5 in a poll of industry professionals to findThe Most Powerful People in Television Drama. Abbott was the highest-placed writer on the list, those above him being actors and executives.

Tightrope Pictures have produced several high-profile dramas for theBBC, includingRichard Curtis'sThe Girl in the Café (also directed by David Yates forBBC One, 2005) and an adaptation ofWilliam Golding's novelTo the Ends of the Earth (BBC Two, 2005). In 2009, Abbott acted as executive producer on the film version ofState of Play for Universal Pictures.

The first series ofNo Offence aired onChannel 4 beginning in May 2015. In 2021, Sky Max would broadcast Abbott's newest crime series,Wolfe.

This section of abiography of a living persondoes notinclude anyreferences or sources. Please help by addingreliable sources. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourcedmust be removed immediately. Find sources: "Paul Abbott" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(January 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In July 2006, it was announced that theUniversity of Salford had appointed Abbott as a visiting professor; the same month,Manchester Metropolitan University awarded him with anhonorary doctorate. His November 2006 lecture at Salford entitled "The 21st Century Box" explored how media is changing and provided "first aid for British television makers". Attendees included the Mayor and Mayoress of Salford.

In 2013, Dr. Beth Johnson from theUniversity of Leeds published the first book-length academic study of Abbott's work alongside Manchester University Press.

In 2015, Abbott was awarded an honorary doctorate fromKeele University.

General

• Jeffries, Stuart (7 February 2005)."Why I Write".The Guardian.
• O'Carroll, Lisa (16 May 2003)."Abbott turns his 'sub-working class' life into drama".The Guardian.
• Wylie, Ian (24 April 2007)."Abbott blasts today's TV".Manchester Evening News.

Specific

• Paul Abbott atIMDb
• "Writers Room", Question and Answer with Paul Abbott, BBC website
• Paul Abbott entry at the British Film Institute's screenonline
• Paul Abbott to work with MA Students at Salford University
• Abbott Receives Honorary Doctorate from Manchester Metropolitan University
• Royal Television Society Past Award Winners (Downloadable PDF)
• Desert Island Discs

• 1960 births
• Living people
• Academics of the University of Salford
• Alumni of Manchester Metropolitan University
• Alumni of the Victoria University of Manchester
• BAFTA winners (people)
• Edgar Award winners
• English soap opera writers
• English television producers
• English television writers
• People from Burnley
• British showrunners
• Television show creators
• English male writers
• English male television writers
• Mass media people from Lancashire
• Writers from Lancashire

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• EngvarB from August 2014
• Use dmy dates from August 2014
• Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2021
• All articles containing potentially dated statements
• BLP articles lacking sources from January 2025
• All BLP articles lacking sources