| Peter Bowker | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1958 (age 53–54) Hazel Grove, Stockport, England |
| Occupation | Screenwriter, playwright |
| Nationality | British |
| Genres | Drama |
| Notable work(s) | Blackpool Occupation Desperate Romantics |
| Notable award(s) | RTS Award for Best Writer 2002 Flesh and Blood 2009 Occupation |
Peter Bowker (born 1958)[1] is a British playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for the television serials Blackpool (2004), a musical drama about a shady casino owner; Occupation (2009), which follows three military servicemen adjusting to civilian life after a tour of duty in Iraq; and Desperate Romantics (2009), a biographical drama about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In 2007, he adapted Blackpool for CBS as Viva Laughlin.
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Born and raised in Hazel Grove, Stockport,[2][3] Bowker read philosophy and English at the University of Leeds.[4] He taught for twelve years in a Leeds hospital unit for the mentally handicapped,[4] and went on to study for an M.A. in creative writing at the University of East Anglia, where his tutors were novelists Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain. He switched to the screenwriting course after realising he preferred writing dialogue.[3][4]
Bowker began his career writing for the long-running BBC medical drama Casualty in 1992. He wrote seven episodes of the series, including the 1993 episode "Boiling Point", in which the emergency department is burnt down by rioters. "Boiling Point" attracted 17 million viewers and hundreds of complaints, and led to Bowker writing for Medics and Peak Practice.[5]
Bowker later began to write his own works for television, and in 2002 contributed the play Flesh and Blood to the BBC2 season on sex and disability. It was hailed as a breakthrough in the representation of learning disability.[6] He has also contributed updated versions of "The Miller's Tale" and A Midsummer Night's Dream for the BBC's The Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare ReTold series (2003 and 2005, respectively).
In 2009, Bowker rose back to prominence with a series of high profile and critically acclaimed serial dramas. Occupation, based upon the backdrop of the Iraq War and starring James Nesbitt and Stephen Graham, ran for three consecutive nights on BBC One. It averaged approximately 4 million viewers across the three nights and was described by The Independent as a "masterly production",[7] as well as gaining praise across the wider media. Bowker followed this with another BBC drama, Desperate Romantics, and an adaptation of Emily Brontë's classic novel Wuthering Heights for ITV.
Bowker executive produced both Viva Laughlin and Wuthering Heights.[8][9] He won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Writer for both 2002, for Flesh and Blood, and 2009, for Occupation.[10][11]
Bowker's future projects include an adaptation of Mark Haddon's novel, A Spot of Bother, a medical drama series called Monroe for ITV1, and a biopic of Morecambe and Wise for the BBC, broadcast on Jan 1st 2011.[3][12][13]