Paul Abbott makes difficult people worth our time, especially when they have work to do together. We recommend his ensemble dramas, with a reservation: the writing can keep advertising a character’s outrageousness after we have understood it.
Fi1m perspective
David Threlfall’s Frank Gallagher is funny without being easy company in Shameless (2004). Paul Abbott gives us other people worth watching when Frank has exhausted our patience, and that attention to an ensemble is central to his appeal. We like his willingness to let affection survive irritation. His strongest writing gives these difficult people enough to do that they need not spend every scene demonstrating how difficult they are.
The progression from writing on Coronation Street to contributing to Cracker (1993), then creating Clocking Off (2000), widened the settings for his interest in working lives. Cracker belongs first to Jimmy McGovern, with Abbott and Ted Whitehead among its writers. Robbie Coltrane’s Fitz is a useful test of the writing: the humour makes his excesses bearable, but repeated demonstrations of them tell us less each time. Those characters need room to do something we have not already seen.
State of Play (2003) is his most satisfying work among these series. Across six episodes, director David Yates makes room for Abbott’s complicated investigation, while Donal Woods’s production design gives the newsroom the credibility of a shared workplace. We grew unexpectedly fond of these reporters because the ensemble made the business of pursuing a story feel worth caring about. The plotting occasionally makes a conversation feel like another task to complete, and we wanted more time with the people rather than the connections. Usually, though, Abbott makes the concentration pay.
Shameless asks for a different sort of patience. Abbott, Daniel Brocklehurst and Jack Thorne are among the contributors to writing that lets performers be petty, evasive or unexpectedly considerate. When the dialogue insists on advertising everyone’s outrageousness, those same actors must supply distinctions the words have lost. The acting earns our affection, but the uneven writing and appetite for noise put a real qualification on the recommendation.
With No Offence (2015), a police procedural with a comic edge, Abbott continued to put humour alongside investigative work. That combination makes sense for a writer whose best scenes allow people to get on with something while remaining awkward company. Give State of Play an evening without distractions; Frank Gallagher requires a little more tolerance.
Biography
Paul Abbott is an English screenwriter and producer. Born in Burnley in 1960, he began his career writing radio plays before becoming a story editor and later a scriptwriter on Coronation Street. He produced the second series of Cracker in 1994 and wrote episodes for the drama.
Abbott created or wrote several acclaimed series, including State of Play (2003), Clocking Off (2000–2003), Shameless (2004–2013) and No Offence (2015–2018). He has received awards including a Royal Television Society Award for Clocking Off and a Peabody Award for State of Play.
