The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.

Introduction[link]

The British Film Academy was founded in 1947 by David Lean, Alexander Korda, Carol Reed, Laurence Olivier, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Roger Manvell and other leading figures in the British film industry.^[1] In 1958, the Academy merged with the Guild of Television Producers and Directors to form the Society of Film and Television Arts, which eventually became the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1976.

BAFTA is an independent charity with a mission to "support, develop and promote the art forms of the moving image, by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners and benefiting the public". In addition to high-profile awards ceremonies BAFTA runs a year-round programme of educational events including film screenings, tribute evenings, interviews, lectures and debates with leading industry figures. BAFTA is supported by a membership of around 6500 people from the film, television and video game industries. BAFTA's main headquarters is on Piccadilly in London, but it also has branches in Scotland, in Wales, in New York and in Los Angeles.

These four branches of the Academy initially operated under their own brands (BAFTA Scotland, BAFTA Cymru, BAFTA East Coast and BAFTA Los Angeles). In July 2010, all branches of the Academy were brought together as one fully affiliated BAFTA.

The Academy's awards are in the form of a theatrical mask designed by American sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe, which was commissioned by the Guild of Television Producers and Directors in 1955. It has since become an internationally-recognised symbol of excellence in the art forms of the moving image.

In November 2007 a special tribute programme was shown on ITV in the UK celebrating 60 years of the organisation called 'Happy Birthday BAFTA'.

The Academy has been associated with the British monarchy since The Duke of Edinburgh became the British Film Academy's first president in the 1940s. The Earl Mountbatten of Burma and The Princess Royal have since held this position, and in 2010 Prince William became the newest Academy president.^[2]

Awards presented in London[link]

Film[link]

BAFTA's annual film awards ceremony is known as the British Academy Film Awards. It aims to reward the best work of any nationality seen on British cinema screens during the preceding year. Since 2008 the ceremony has been held at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden having previously taken place at the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square since 2000. The ceremony previously took place in April or May, but from 2002 onwards has taken place in February, in order to precede the Oscars.

In order for a film to be considered for a BAFTA nomination its first public exhibition must be in a cinema and it must have a UK theatrical release for no fewer than seven days in the calendar year that corresponds to the upcoming awards. A film must be feature length and films from all countries are eligible in all categories, with the exception of Outstanding British Film, Outstanding Debut, Short Film and Short Animation which are for British films only.

Rising Star Award[link]

Presented at the Orange British Academy Film Awards, the Orange Rising Star Award recognises exceptional new acting talent in the film industry. A shortlist of six nominees is selected by BAFTA juries regardless of the nominee's gender and nationality. The winner is then voted for by the public. This award is dedicated to the memory of Mary Selway, the highly respected BAFTA-winning British casting director who died in 2004.

Television[link]

The British Academy Television Awards usually take place in April or May, with craft awards having a separate ceremony slightly later in the year.

The awards are also often referred to simply as "the BAFTAs" or, to differentiate them from the film awards, the "BAFTA Television Awards". They have been awarded annually since 1954. The first ever ceremony consisted of six categories. Until 1958, they were awarded by the Guild of Television Producers and Directors.

From 1968 until 1997, the BAFTA Film and Television awards were presented in one joint ceremony known simply as the BAFTA Awards, but in order to streamline the ceremonies from 1998 onwards they were split in two. The Television Craft Awards are presented for more technical areas of the industry, such as visual effects, production, and costume design.

The awards are only open to British programmes — with the exception of the audience-voted YouTube Audience Award — but any cable, satellite, terrestrial or digital television stations broadcasting in the UK are eligible to submit entries, as are independent production companies who have produced programming for the channels. Individual performances can either be entered by the performers themselves or by the broadcasters. The programmes being entered must have been broadcast on or between 1 January and 31 December of the year preceding the awards ceremony.

"Baftagate"[link]

The 1991 awards were controversial when Prime Suspect beat G.B.H. to win the Best Drama Serial award. In what became known as "Baftagate",^[3] four of the jurors publicly declared that they had voted for G.B.H. and demanded to see the votes, but these had been destroyed.

Children's[link]

The British Academy Children's Awards are presented annually in November to reward excellence in the art forms of the moving image aimed at children. They have been awarded annually since 1969.

The Academy has a long history of recognising and rewarding children's programming, presenting two awards at the 1969 ceremony – The Flame of Knowledge Award for Schools Programmes and the Harlequin Award for Children's Programmes.

As of 2010 the Awards ceremony includes 19 categories across film, television, video games and online content. The 2009 Awards ceremony took place on 29 November at the London Hilton Hotel. BAFTA Children's Awards winners in 2009

Since 2007 the Children's Awards have included a Kids Vote Award voted by children under 14 and a CBBC Me and My Movie award, a children's filmmaking initiative to inspire and enable children to make their own films and tell their own stories.

Television Craft[link]

The Television Craft Awards are presented for the behind the camera skills involved television production. They have been awarded annually since 1999. In 2000 the awards were separated from the British Academy Television Awards. The Craft Awards also now include several categories associated with interactive media.

As of 2010, the awards included the following categories:

The 2010 Television Craft Awards took place on 23 May. British Academy Television Craft Awards winners in 2010

Video games[link]

BAFTA first recognised video games and other interactive media at its inaugural BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards ceremony in 1998, ushering in the first change to its rules since the admittance of television thirty years earlier. Among the first winning games were GoldenEye 007, Gran Turismo and interactive comedy MindGym, sharing the spotlight with the BBC News Online website which won the news category four years running. These awards allowed the Academy to recognise new forms of entertainment that were engaging new audiences and challenging traditional expressions of creativity.

In 2003, the sheer ubiquity of interactive forms of entertainment and the breadth of genres and platforms in video games outgrew the combined ceremony, and the event was split into the BAFTA Video Games Awards and the BAFTA Interactive Awards.^[4] By December 2003 however, despite making huge headlines with high profile winners like Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 the interactive division was discontinued and disappeared from BAFTA's publicity material after only two ceremonies.

In 2006, BAFTA announced its decision "to give video games equal status with film and television", and the Academy now positions video games as its third pillar of activity in recognition of its importance as an art form of the moving image. The same year the ceremony was held at The Roundhouse by Chalk Farm Road in North London on 5 October and was televised for the first time on 17 October and was aired on the digital channel E4.

The 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 ceremonies took place at the London Hilton Park Lane and were hosted by Dara Ó Briain. They were fully filmed and streamed live online at the official BAFTA website.

Awards presented in Los Angeles[link]

Britannia Awards[link]

The BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Awards started in 1989 and are held in October/November each year. The ceremony is described as being "a bridge between the Hollywood and British production and entertainment business communities."^[5] There are no awards given to specific films or TV programmes, only to individuals. During the first ten years, one award was given at each event, called the "Britannia Award for Excellence in Film", but since 1999 the number of awards has grown.

Awards given include 'The Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film' (the original award was renamed in 2000 to honour Stanley Kubrick), 'The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing' (added in 2003 in honour of John Schlesinger), the ‘Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year’, and the ‘Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment’. In select years, the evening has included the ‘BAFTA Los Angeles Humanitarian Award’.

The show has been broadcast on TV around the world, including the TV Guide Network in the United States.

• 1989 – Albert R. Broccoli
• 1990 – Michael Caine
• 1991 – No award held
• 1992 – Peter Ustinov
• 1993 – Martin Scorsese
• 1994 – No award held
• 1995 – Anthony Hopkins
• 1996 – Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein
• 1997 – Dustin Hoffman
• 1998 – John Travolta

The 1999 recipients were:

• Stanley Kubrick – Honoree for Excellence in Film
• Aaron Spelling – Honoree for Excellence in Television
• Tarsem Singh – Honoree for Excellence in Commercials Direction
• BBC – Honoree for Corporate Excellence

The 2000 recipients were:

• Steven Spielberg – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film

The 2001/2002 recipients were:

• George Lucas – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• HBO Original Programming – The Britannia Award for Excellence in Television

The 2003 recipients were:

• Hugh Grant – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Angela Lansbury – Britannia Award for Lifetime Achievement in Television and Film
• Howard Stringer – Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment
• Peter Weir – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing

The 2004 recipients were:

• Tom Hanks – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Helen Mirren – Britannia Award for Excellence in International Entertainment
• Jim Sheridan – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing

The 2005 recipients were:

• Tom Cruise – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Elizabeth Taylor – The Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in International Entertainment
• Mike Newell – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing
• Ronald Neame – The Cunard Britannia Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Film

The 2006 recipients were:

• Sidney Poitier – The Cunard Britannia Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Film
• Rachel Weisz – The Britannia Award for Artist of the Year
• Anthony Minghella – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing

The 2007 recipients were:

• Denzel Washington – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Martin Campbell – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing
• Kate Winslet – The Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year
• New Line Cinema's Bob Shaye & Michael Lynne – Cunard Britannia Award for Lifetime Contributions to International Film
• Richard Curtis – The BAFTA/LA Humanitarian Award presented by Volvo

The 2008 recipients were:

• Sean Penn – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Tilda Swinton – The Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year
• Stephen Frears – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing
• Don Cheadle – The BAFTA/LA Humanitarian Award presented by Volvo

The 2009 recipients were:

• Robert De Niro – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Danny Boyle – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing
• Emily Blunt – The Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year
• Colin Firth – The BAFTA/LA Humanitarian Award presented by Volvo
• Kirk Douglas – Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment

The 2010 recipients were:

• Jeff Bridges – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• Betty White – Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy
• Christopher Nolan – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing
• Ridley Scott and Tony Scott – Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment
• Michael Sheen – The Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year

The 2011 recipients were:

• Warren Beatty – Stanley Kubrick Britannia Awards for Excellence in Film
• John Lasseter – Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment
• David Yates – The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing^[6]
• Helena Bonham Carter – Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year^[7]
• Ben Stiller - Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy

Awards presented in Scotland and in Wales[link]

BAFTA in Scotland[link]

BAFTA in Scotland is the branch of the Academy located in Glasgow, Scotland, mainly funded by the principal Scottish broadcasters. Formed in 1997, the BAFTA in Scotland branch holds an annual awards ceremony to recognise achievement by performers and production staff in Scottish film and television. The BAFTA Scotland Awards are separate from the UK-wide British Academy Television Awards and British Academy Film Awards, although films and programmes recognised by BAFTA in Scotland can also sometimes feature at BAFTA's UK awards. BAFTA Scotland Awards Winners in 2009

BAFTA in Scotland also holds an annual New Talent Awards ceremony focusing on new & emerging Scottish talent in the art forms of the moving image. New Talent Awards Winners in 2010.

BAFTA Cymru[link]

BAFTA in Wales or BAFTA Cymru is the branch of the Academy located in Wales. Formed in 1991, it holds an annual awards ceremony to recognise achievement by performers and production staff in films and television programmes made in Wales. The BAFTA Cymru Awards are separate from the UK-wide British Academy Television Awards and British Academy Film Awards, although films and programmes recognised by BAFTA Cymru may also feature at BAFTA's national awards.

Presidents and Vice Presidents[link]

Presidents

1. HRH The Duke of Edinburgh (1959–1965)
2. The Rt Hon The Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1966–1972)
3. HRH The Princess Royal (1973–2001)
4. The Rt Hon The Lord Attenborough (2001–2010)
5. HRH The Duke of Cambridge (2010–present)

Vice Presidents

1. The Rt Hon The Lord Attenborough (1973–1995)
2. The Rt Hon The Lord Puttnam (1995–2004)
3. Michael Grade (2004–2009)
4. Duncan Kenworthy (2009–present)
5. Sophie Turner Laing (2010–present)

See also[link]

• 2012 BAFTA Ceremony
• 2011 BAFTA Ceremony
• BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Media related to BAFTA Awards at Wikimedia Commons

• BAFTA official site
• BAFTA Los Angeles site
• BAFTA in Wales site
• BAFTA in Scotland site
• BAFTA in New York site
• IMDB: BAFTA
• Official Collaborator

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Benedict Cumberbatch
Cumberbatch during filming of Sherlock in 2011
Born	Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch (1976-07-19) 19 July 1976 (age 35) London, England, UK
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2001–present
Parents	Timothy Carlton Wanda Ventham

Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch (born 19 July 1976) is an English film, television, radio and theatre actor. His most acclaimed roles include Stephen Hawking in the BBC drama Hawking (2004); William Pitt in the historical film Amazing Grace (2006); the protagonist Stephen Ezard in the miniseries thriller The Last Enemy (2008); Paul Marshall in Atonement (2007); Bernard in Small Island (2009); Sherlock Holmes in the modern BBC adaptation series Sherlock (2010); and Peter Guillam in the spy thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011).

In February 2011, he began playing both Victor Frankenstein and his creature opposite Jonny Lee Miller in Danny Boyle's stage adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The play had a three-month run at the National Theatre. In late 2011, he played Major Stewart in Steven Spielberg's War Horse (2011). The film received five BAFTA nominations and six Academy Award nominations, including the Best Picture nomination in 2012. He also played Peter Guillam, one of the pivotal roles in Tomas Alfredson's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011), which was nominated for three Academy Awards and 11 BAFTA Awards. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was also nominated for Best Picture in 2012.

He reprised the role of Sherlock Holmes in the second series of the BBC's Sherlock, which aired in the United Kingdom in January 2012 and was broadcast on PBS in the United States in May 2012. In addition to the BBC's Sherlock, he stars as Christopher Tietjens in the BBC/HBO co-production television miniseries Parade's End, which is expected to be released in 2012. He will portray Smaug the Dragon through motion capture and voice the Necromancer in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: There and Back Again. He will also portray the antagonist in director J.J. Abrams’s Untitled Star Trek sequel, which will be released in May 2013.

Early life and education[link]

Cumberbatch was born on 19 July 1976 in London, the son of actors Timothy Carlton (birth name Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch) and Wanda Ventham. He was educated at two independent schools: Brambletye School^[1] in West Sussex, followed by Harrow School in northwest London, where he began performing as an actor. After school, he took a gap year to teach English in a Tibetan monastery.^[2] He then attended the University of Manchester, where he studied drama.^[3] After graduating, Cumberbatch continued his training as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Career[link]

Theatre[link]

Since 2001, Cumberbatch has had major roles in a dozen classic plays at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, Almeida Theatre, Royal Court Theatre and the National Theatre. He was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for his performance as Tesman in Hedda Gabler, a role he performed at the Almeida Theatre on 16 March 2005, as well as at the Duke of York's Theatre when it transferred to the West End on 19 May 2005.

Cumberbatch acted in The Children’s Monologues, a star-studded theatrical event at London's Old Vic Theatre on 14 November 2010. The show was produced by Dramatic Need.^[4] In February 2011, he began playing, on alternate nights, both Victor Frankenstein and his creature, opposite Jonny Lee Miller, in Danny Boyle's stage production of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at the National Theatre.^[5][6] Frankenstein was broadcast to cinemas as a part of National Theatre Live in March 2011.^[7] The Children’s Monologues was directed by Danny Boyle as well.

In April 2012 Cumberbatch won the Olivier Award for Best Actor (jointly with Jonny Lee Miller) for the acclaimed Frankenstein at the National Theatre, directed by Danny Boyle, with the two lead actors alternating the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature.

Television[link]

Cumberbatch's television roles include two separate guest roles in Heartbeat (2000, 2004), Freddy in Tipping the Velvet (2002), Edward Hand in Cambridge Spies (2003) and Rory in the ITV comedy drama series Fortysomething (2003). He was also featured in Spooks and Silent Witness.

In 2004, he starred as Stephen Hawking in Hawking. He was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor and won the Golden Nymph for Television Films – Best Performance by an Actor. (He later provided Hawking's voice in the first episode of the television series Curiosity.) He also appeared in the BBC miniseries Dunkirk as Lieutenant Jimmy Langley.

In 2005, Cumberbatch starred as the protagonist Edmund Talbot in the miniseries To the Ends of the Earth, based on William Golding's trilogy. Director David Attwood said:

We found Benedict Cumberbatch fairly early. We needed a very good actor, someone young enough to be believable as an aristocratic, an almost slightly dislikeable character who is an adolescent in terms of his views of the world, his upbringing. But we also needed someone who could hold the screen for four and half hours, in every scene. We needed someone with experience who was not only a very good actor, but also with terrific comic timing. Benedict was the ideal answer to that.^[8]

Producer Lynn Horsford added:

Benedict was remarkable. He carried the Golding novels with him on set and constantly referred to them. We needed him every single day and he just didn't stop, nor complain. He simply became Edmund Talbot. And that commitment spread to every cast member. The process of making this film echoed the journey the characters went on in the story—we really got to know each other during our four months on location and we became very close.^[8]

He also made brief appearances in the comedy sketch show Broken News in 2005.

Cumberbatch next starred alongside Tom Hardy in the television adaptation of the book Stuart: A Life Backwards, which aired on the BBC in September 2007. In 2008, he starred in the BBC miniseries drama The Last Enemy, for which he was nominated for a Satellite Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or TV Film.

In 2009, Cumberbatch starred in Marple: Murder Is Easy as Luke Fitzwilliam. He played Bernard in the TV adaptation of Small Island; the performance earned him a nomination for BAFTA Television Award for Best Supporting Actor.^[9] He also starred in Michael Dobbs' play The Turning Point which aired as one of a series of TV plays broadcast live on Sky Arts channel. The two-hander depicted a little-known October 1938 meeting between Soviet spy Guy Burgess, then a young man working for the BBC, and Winston Churchill. Cumberbatch portrayed Burgess; Churchill was played by Matthew Marsh, who had played a supporting role in Hawking.^[10]

Cumberbatch narrated the 6-part series South Pacific (U.S. title: Wild Pacific), which aired May to June 2009 on BBC 2.

Cumberbatch, a fan of long-running British science fiction series Doctor Who, suggested in a July 2010 interview that he would be interested in appearing as a main or recurring character on the show, run by Sherlock producer and personal friend Steven Moffat.^[11] In 2008 he had discussed with David Tennant taking over the part of the Doctor but had decided not to try for the role.^[12]

In 2010, Cumberbatch portrayed Vincent van Gogh in Van Gogh: Painted with Words. The Telegraph called his performance "[a] treat ... vividly bringing Van Gogh to impassioned, blue-eyed life."^[13] Also in 2010, Cumberbatch began playing Sherlock Holmes in the first series of the BBC television programme Sherlock, to critical acclaim.^[14][15] A second three-part series began on New Years Day 2012 in England^[16] and will broadcast on PBS in the United States in May 2012.^[17]

He will co-star with Rebecca Hall as Christopher and Sylvia Tietjens in Parade's End, a forthcoming BBC/HBO television miniseries, expected for release in 2012. It is an adaptation of the tetralogy of novels of the same name by Ford Madox Ford. Its five episodes will be directed by Susanna White and written by Tom Stoppard.^[18][19]

Film[link]

In 2006, Cumberbatch played William Pitt the Younger in Amazing Grace. The film is the story of William Wilberforce's intense and lengthy political fight in the late 18th century to eliminate slave trade in the British Empire. Pitt was Wilberforce's closest friend and staunchest political ally, and became Prime Minister at an early age. The role garnered Cumberbatch a nomination for the London Film Critics Circle British Breakthrough Acting Award.

Cumberbatch subsequently appeared in supporting roles in Atonement (2007) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2008). In 2009, he appeared in the Darwin biopic Creation as Darwin's friend Joseph Hooker. In 2010, he appeared in The Whistleblower.

He played Peter Guillam, George Smiley's right-hand man in the 2011 adaptation of the John le Carré novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, directed by Tomas Alfredson, also starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.^[20] He also portrayed Major Stewart in Steven Spielberg's War Horse (2011).

He will play Smaug the Dragon through motion capture and voice the Necromancer in The Hobbit: There and Back Again.^[21]

It has been reported that Cumberbatch will play a lead role in the upcoming J. J. Abrams-directed Star Trek sequel.^[22][23]

Radio[link]

In May 2009, BBC Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation of John Mortimer's novel Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders. Cumberbatch played the "young Rumpole", and Timothy West took the part of the "old Rumpole". Cumberbatch plays Capt Martin Crieff in the BBC's Cabin Pressure.

Miscellaneous[link]

The British GQ magazine named him "Actor of the Year 2011".^[24]

Personal life[link]

Cumberbatch was in a relationship with actress Olivia Poulet, whom he met at university, for over 12 years.^[25][26] They broke up in March 2011.^[27]

List of credits[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Benedict Cumberbatch

• Benedict Cumberbatch at the Internet Movie Database
• Benedict Cumberbatch at AllRovi
• Benedict Cumberbatch at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Benedict Cumberbatch (unofficial website)
• Benedict Cumberbatch Online
• Benedict Cumberbatch collected news and commentary at The Guardian

Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat at Comic Con San Diego 2008
Born	(1961-11-18) 18 November 1961 (age 50)[1] Paisley, Scotland
Occupation	Screenwriter and television producer.
Period	1988–present
Genres	Comedy, drama, adventure, science fiction
Spouse(s)	Sue Vertue[2]
Children	Joshua and Louis[2]

Steven Moffat (/ˌstiːvən ˈmɒfət/, born 18 November 1961^[1]) is a Scottish television writer and producer.

Moffat's first television work was the teen drama series Press Gang. His first sitcom, Joking Apart, was inspired by the breakdown of his first marriage; conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based upon the development of his relationship with television producer Sue Vertue. In between the two relationship-centred shows, he wrote Chalk, a sitcom set in a comprehensive school inspired by his own experience as an English teacher.

A lifelong fan of Doctor Who, Moffat has written several episodes of the revived version and succeeded Russell T Davies as lead writer and executive producer when production of its fifth series began in 2009.^[3] He co-wrote The Adventures of Tintin for director Steven Spielberg, a project he left for his new senior role on Doctor Who. He co-created Sherlock, an adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories.

Many of the programmes upon which he has worked have won awards, including BAFTAs and Hugo Awards for some of his episodes of Doctor Who.

[edit] Early life and Press Gang

Moffat was born in Paisley, Scotland, where he attended Camphill High School.^[4] He studied at the University of Glasgow, where he was involved with the student television station, GUST (Glasgow University Student Television).^[5] After gaining an MA degree in English from Glasgow, he worked as a teacher for three and a half years at Cowdenknowes High School, Greenock.^[4] In the 1980s he wrote a play entitled War Zones (performed at the 1985 Glasgow Mayfest and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe^[6]) and a musical called Knifer.^[7] His father, Bill Moffat, was a head teacher at Thorn Primary School in Johnstone, Renfrewshire;^[2] when the school was used for Harry Secombe's Highway in the late 1980s, he mentioned to the producers that he had an idea for a television series about a school newspaper. The producers asked for a sample script, to which Bill Moffat agreed on condition his son write it.^[8][9] Producer Sandra Hastie said that it was "the best ever first script" that she had read.^[10]

The resulting series was titled Press Gang, starring Julia Sawalha and Dexter Fletcher, and ran for five series on ITV between 1989 and 1993, with Moffat writing all forty-three episodes. The programme won a BAFTA award in its second series.^[11]

During production of the second series of Press Gang, Moffat was experiencing an unhappy personal life as a result of the break-up of his first marriage. The producer was secretly phoning his friends at home to check on his state.^[12] His wife's new lover was represented in the episode "The Big Finish?" by the character Brian Magboy (Simon Schatzberger), a name inspired by Brian: Maggie's boy. Moffat brought in the character so that all sorts of unfortunate things would happen to him, such as having a typewriter dropped on his foot.^[13]

[edit] Joking Apart

Moffat records DVD commentary for Joking Apart (2006)

By 1990, Moffat had written two series of Press Gang, but the programme's high cost along with organisational changes at backers Central Independent Television cast its future in doubt.^[13] As Moffat wondered what to do next and worried about his future employment, Bob Spiers, Press Gang's primary director, suggested that he meet with producer Andre Ptaszynski to discuss writing a sitcom.^[14] Inspired by his experience working in education, Moffat's initial proposal was a programme similar to what would become Chalk, a sitcom set in a school that eventually aired in 1997.^[15] During the pitch meeting at the Groucho Club, Ptaszynski realised that Moffat was talking passionately about his impending divorce and suggested that he write about that instead of a school sitcom.^[15] Taking Ptaszynski's advice, Moffat's new idea was about "a sitcom writer whose wife leaves him".^[16] Moffat wrote two series of Joking Apart, which was directed by Bob Spiers, and starred Robert Bathurst and Fiona Gillies. The show won the Bronze Rose of Montreux^[14] and was entered for the Emmys.^[17] In an interview with Richard Herring, Moffat says that "The sit-com actually lasted slightly longer than my marriage."^[8] Fiona Gillies, who played the adulteress Becky, says that she was aware that some of her dialogue was based on what had been said to Moffat during his own separation.^[16] Moffat recycled his own dialogue: when he had learned that his wife's lover was a fan of Press Gang, he replied, "Well, did he have to fuck my wife? Most people just write in!".^[2][18] The line, with the expletive replaced by "shagged", was used in the first episode of Joking Apart.^[19]

Speaking about the autobiographical elements of the show, the writer jokes that he has to remember that his wife didn't leave him for an estate agent; his wife was an estate agent.^[20][21] Conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based on his relationship with his second wife, TV producer Sue Vertue.^[22] Moffat reused the surname "Taylor", which is Mark's surname in Joking Apart, for Jack Davenport's character Steve in Coupling.

He wrote three episodes of Murder Most Horrid, an anthology series of comedic tales starring Dawn French. The first ("Overkill", directed by Bob Spiers) was identified by the BBC as a "highlight" of the series.^[23] His other two episodes were "Dying Live" (dir. Dewi Humphreys) and "Elvis, Jesus and Zack" (dir. Tony Dow).

[edit] Chalk and Coupling

Between marriages, Moffat claims that he "shagged [his] way round television studios like a mechanical digger."^[2] According to an interview with The New York Times, Moffat met television producer Sue Vertue at the Edinburgh Television Festival in 1996.^[24] Vertue had been working for Tiger Aspect, a production company run by Peter Bennett-Jones. Bennett-Jones and his friend and former colleague Andre Ptaszynski, who had worked with Moffat on Joking Apart, told Moffat and Vertue that each fancied the other. A relationship blossomed and they left their respective production companies to join Hartswood Films, run by Beryl Vertue, Sue's mother.^[9] The couple have two children together: Joshua and Louis.^[2]

Before Moffat left Pola Jones for Hartswood, Ptaszynski produced Chalk, the series that the writer had pitched to him at the beginning of the decade.^[9] Set in a comprehensive school and starring David Bamber as manic deputy head Eric Slatt and Nicola Walker as Suzy Travis, the show was based on Moffat's three years as an English teacher.^[8] The studio audience responded so positively to the first series when it was taped that the BBC commissioned a second series before the first had aired. However, it was met less enthusiastically by critics upon transmission in February 1997, who had taken exception to the BBC's publicity department comparing the show to the highly-respected Fawlty Towers.^[9] In an interview in the early 2000s, Moffat refuses to even name the series, joking that he might get attacked in the street.^[25]

After production wrapped on Chalk in 1997, Moffat announced to the cast that he was marrying Vertue.^[26] When she eventually asked him for a sitcom, he decided to base it around the evolution of their own relationship. Coupling was first broadcast on BBC2 in 2000, with his wife producing for Hartswood Films. The series proved to be highly successful, running until 2004 and producing four series and twenty-eight episodes, all written by Moffat. He also wrote the original, unbroadcast, pilot episode for the American version of the same series, in 2003, although this was less successful and was cancelled after four episodes on the NBC network. Moffat has blamed its failure on an unprecedented level of network interference.^[21]

[edit] Jekyll, Tintin, and Sherlock

He wrote the Hartswood Films drama series Jekyll, a modern version of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which aired on BBC One in June and July 2007.^[27] In an interview with The Age, James Nesbitt, who played the eponymous character, called Moffat "an eccentric, shy fellow", while commending his writing as "inventive and dark and funny".^[28]

In June 2007 Moffat told The Stage that he is working on a new sitcom. Provisionally titled Adam and Eve, it concerns a boss and his personal assistant, who are long-term friends but never get together.^[29] In October 2007 it was reported that Moffat would be scripting a trilogy of The Adventures of Tintin films for directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson.^[30] According to The Times newspaper, Moffat had to be "love bombed" by Spielberg into accepting the offer to write the films, with the director promising to shield him from studio interference with his writing.^[31] He had intended to complete work on the whole trilogy before resuming work on Doctor Who, but the intervening WGA strike meant he could submit a finished script for the first film only.^[32] In July 2008, Moffat was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying: "I could not work on the second Tintin film and work on Doctor Who. So I chose Doctor Who."^[33] Moffat says that Spielberg was "lovely" about his decision. The script was completed by Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, with a part of Moffat's script used in the film.^[34]

Moffat remains a writer for Hartswood Films even after his appointment as show-runner for Doctor Who. During their journeys from London to Cardiff for Doctor Who, Moffat and Mark Gatiss conceived a contemporary update of Sherlock Holmes, called Sherlock.^[35] Benedict Cumberbatch was cast as Holmes, with Martin Freeman as Dr Watson.^[36] A 60-minute pilot, written by Moffat, was filmed in January 2009.^[35][37][38] The pilot was not broadcast, but three 90-minute episodes were commissioned. Moffat wrote the first of these, "A Study in Pink", which was broadcast on 25 July 2010 on BBC One and BBC HD.^[39] A second series was broadcast in January 2012, for which Moffat wrote the episode "A Scandal in Belgravia", with a third series planned for production in late 2012.^[34][40]

[edit] Doctor Who

Moffat, a fan of Doctor Who since childhood,^[41] first professionally contributed to Doctor Who with a prose story, "Continuity Errors", which was published in the 1996 Virgin Books anthology Decalog 3: Consequences. In 1999 he scripted the parody Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death, which aired as part of Comic Relief's Red Nose Day charity telethon. The co-producer for that year's Comic Relief telethon was Moffat's then-new wife, Sue Vertue.^[42]

In 2004 Moffat was signed to write for the revival of Doctor Who. He became known, according to The Guardian, for writing "the clever, darker episodes" of the first four series of the show.^[4] His contribution for the 2005 series was the Hugo Award-winning^[43][44] two-part story "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances". In the DVD audio commentary he says that he waited forty years to see his name appear on top of that theme music.^[41] He wrote an episode for each of the two following series of Doctor Who: "The Girl in the Fireplace" in the 2006 series (which won the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form^[45] and was nominated for a 2006 Nebula Award^[46]) and "Blink" in the 2007 series. In the Doctor Who Magazine reader poll for the 2007 series, Moffat was voted as best writer and "Blink" as the best story. The episode was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Script.^[46] In 2008 it secured him his third Hugo win, again for Best Dramatic Presentation,^[47] the BAFTA Craft Award for Best Writer,^[48] and a BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Screenwriter.^[49] He also wrote the 2007 Children in Need "special scene" "Time Crash".^[50]

He wrote a two-part story for series four in 2008, titled "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead". This made Moffat and series executive producer Russell T Davies the only writers to have contributed scripts to all four series of the revived show. In March 2008, Davies said that he often rewrote scripts from other writers, but didn't "touch a word" of Moffat's episodes.^[21] Moffat's script for series four secured him his fourth consecutive Hugo Awards nomination, though it did not win.

The BBC announced in May 2008 that Moffat would be taking over from Russell T Davies as head writer and executive producer for the revived show's fifth series, to be broadcast in 2010,^[3] although Davies had initiated discussions with Moffat regarding this as far back as July 2007.^[51] Commenting on his appointment, Moffat said it was "the proper duty of every British subject to come to the aid of the TARDIS".^[32] Production on Moffat's time in charge of the programme began in July 2009.^[52] As executive producer and head writer, he was significantly involved in casting Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor. Smith first appeared as the Doctor at the end of Davies and David Tennant's final episode "The End of Time, Part 2", in a short post-regeneration scene that Davies left for Moffat to write himself. Moffat wrote the scene in "about ten minutes" as "a bit of fun banter" for the new Doctor.^[53]

In addition to his television episodes, Moffat has also contributed stories to Panini Publishing's Doctor Who Storybook series, penning the short stories "What I Did On My Christmas Holidays By Sally Sparrow" for the 2006 book (which later formed the basis of his TV episode "Blink"),^[54] "Corner of the Eye" for the 2007 volume and "A Letter From the Doctor" which opens the 2009 Storybook.

Writing credits[link]