Steven Moffat
, b. 1961
Steven Moffat (1961– ) is an acclaimed Scottish TV writer and producer, who has been a significant force in British television and film since the late 1980s. Having studied at the University of Glasgow, he began writing creatively for the stage while working as a teacher in Greenock (near Glasgow). A play – War Zones (1985) – and a musical – Knifer (1989) – garnered some acclaim, but his big break came with a sample script for a show about a school newspaper. This was picked-up by ITV as Press Gang (1989–1993), showcasing much of Britain’s up-and-coming young talent. From there, he worked on the series Joking Apart (1993–1995) and Chalk (1997), before having a huge hit with the relationship-themed comedy Coupling (2000–2004). Moffat was a long-time fan of Doctor Who – writing a comedy spoof for Comic Relief entitled The Curse of Fatal Death (1999) – and when it was re-launched under Russel T. Davies from 2005, he contributed scripts for perhaps the best episodes of the revamped series: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (2005). He contributed The Girl in the Fireplace (2006), and Blink (2007), as well as the short charity episode Time Crash (2007). Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (2008) followed; and on the strength of this – and his reputation with the outgoing showrunner, Davies – Moffat took over as executive producer from 2010. Moffat hired Matt Smith to replaced David Tennant as the Doctor (the Eleventh incarnation of the Time Lord), writing or editing in some form on almost every series of the programme from 2010 to 2017. Concurrently, Moffat collaborated with Mark Gatiss on the series Sherlock (2010-2017); six episodes of Jekyll (2007); and worked with Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson on feature-film The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011).
Bio prepared by Richard Scully, University of New England, rscully@une.edu.au
Records in database:
