Jimmy McGovern

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Jimmy McGovern (born 1949) is a BAFTA award-winning English television scriptwriter from Liverpool. He is particularly known for writing powerful and thought-provoking dramas often based around hard-hitting social issues or controversial real-life events.

McGovern started his career working on Channel 4's social-realist soap opera Brookside in 1982, tackling many social issues such as unemployment.

In 1993, he created the drama serial Cracker about the work of a criminal psychologist played by Robbie Coltrane. Made by Granada Television and screened on ITV, the series was a phenomenal critical and popular success. Cracker also aired in the United States, on the PBS anthology program Mystery!, and McGovern's writing earned him two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America.

Since Cracker, his work has included BBC One drama serial The Lakes (1997-99), ITV's Hillsborough (a dramatised reconstruction of the events of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster) (1996), Sunday (2002) for Channel 4, based on the events of 'Bloody Sunday', Gunpowder, Treason & Plot, a two part dramatisation of the lives of Mary, Queen of Scots and James I of England (2004) for BBC One and The Street (2006), also for BBC One. McGovern has also completed a musical stage show called King Cotton as part of the Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008 which premiered at the Lowry in September 2007 before moving to the Liverpool Empire. With a world-class director in Jude Kelly, an inspired musical director in Patrick Dineen, and a talented and hard-working cast, King Cotton has been winning acclaim from audiences and critics alike, and looks set to reach wider audiences in the near future.

A second series of The Street is currently being broadcast with McGovern as lead writer; a script by Danny Brocklehurst is being included in the series.

McGovern has described cinema scriptwriters as being treated like hacks and forced to crank out countless drafts by successive producers. Conversely, he believes that television directors are underrated. He says: “I have worked twice with David Blair [on The Lakes and The Street], and I can tell you that he is the best there is. He can make a good project great... Why David hasn’t won the acclaim he deserves is a mystery to me.”^[1]