John Fay | |
---|---|
Occupation | Screenwriter, playwright |
Nationality | British |
Genre | Drama, soap opera, science fiction |
Notable works | Brookside, Coronation Street, Torchwood, Mobile |
Notable awards |
Best Continuing Drama 2005 Coronation Street |
John Fay is a British television writer, and playwright from Merseyside. He is known for his work on television soap operas Brookside and Coronation Street as well as his later work on original dramatic production.
Fay began his television career on Brookside, although he states in an interview that it took him 16 years and several speculative scripts to get taken on to the writing staff full-time. He stayed on the creative team for two years, writing 54 episodes, before joining the writing staff of Coronation Street, writing 94 episodes and becoming lead writer. In 2005 he received the British Academy Television Award for Best Continuing Drama, sharing the BAFTA with Coronation Street producer Tony Wood and director Ian Bevitt. One of his notable scripts for Coronation Street was "Richard Hillman's murder confession" which attracted over 19 million viewers. Fay's other television contributions include episodes of Clocking Off, Blue Murder and Robin Hood. In 2007, Fay created the three-part ITV drama series Mobile. Fay is a self-confessed hater of mobile telephones and in Mobile chose to explore the themes of "people's paranoid desire to always be in contact with each other" and whether mobile phones are actually necessary.
Russell T Davies, having been an admirer of John Fay's work on Coronation Street and Mobile, approached Fay to write for the third series of Torchwood. Fay wrote two episodes of the award-winning third series of Torchwood, subtitled Children of Earth, which aired 7 and 9 July 2009. He returned to write the ninth episode of the shows' fourth series, Torchwood: Miracle Day a collaboration between BBC Wales, BBC Worldwide and US cable channel Starz. In 2011 he also wrote for the fourth series of Primeval.