Peter Bowker

{{short description|British playwright and screenwriter|bot=PearBOT 5}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Peter Bowker

| image =

| caption =

| birth_date = {{bda|1959|1|5|df=y}}{{cite web |title=Peter BOWKER - Personal Appointments |url=https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/IgwlC-DCqW02baxAUXfuKrd8XVM/appointments |publisher=Companies House |access-date=1 February 2021 |language=en}}

| birth_place = Hazel Grove, Stockport, England

| occupation = Screenwriter, playwright

| nationality = British

| genre = Drama

| notableworks = Blackpool
Occupation
Capital
The A Word

| subject =

| awards = {{ Awards | RTS Award for Best Writer | 2002 | Flesh and Blood | | | 2009 | Occupation }}

Awarded Doctorate of Letters at University of Keele 16 July 2015

}}

Peter Bowker (born 5 January 1959) is a British playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for the television serials Blackpool (2004), a musical drama about a shady casino owner in the north of England; Occupation (2009), which follows three military servicemen adjusting to civilian life after a tour of duty in Iraq; Capital (2015), an Emmy award-winning drama about real-estate bubbles in South London; and The A Word (2016), an adaptation of Keren Margalit's Israeli drama Yellow Peppers about a family raising an autistic child. In 2007, he adapted Blackpool for CBS as Viva Laughlin.

Biography

Born and raised in Hazel Grove, Stockport, England.{{cite news |title=Occupation: Local Hero|url= http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/showbiz/s/1119522_occupation_local_hero|author=Wylie, Ian|newspaper=Manchester Evening News |date=8 June 2009 |access-date=10 August 2009}}{{cite news |title=Sex and rebellion: Desperate Romantics writer Peter Bowker on his new BBC drama |url= https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/jul/21/desperate-romantics-bbc-drama |author=Jeffries, Stuart|newspaper=The Guardian |date=21 July 2009 |access-date=8 August 2009}} Bowker was educated at Marple Hall School and read Philosophy and English at the University of Leeds.{{cite news |title=Dark drama in Blackpool's arcadia |url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/3626656/Dark-drama-in-Blackpools-arcadia.html |author=Pile, Stephen|newspaper=The Telegraph |date=6 November 2004 |access-date=8 August 2009}} He taught for twelve years in a Leeds hospital unit for the intellectually disabled, 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.

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.{{cite news |title=Arts: Give Us A break Guv |url= https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/arts-give-us-a-break-guv-1287420.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220525/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/arts-give-us-a-break-guv-1287420.html |archive-date=25 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |author=Rosenthal, Daniel|newspaper=The Independent |date=7 December 1997 |access-date=1 September 2009}}

Bowker later began to write his own works for television, and in 2002 contributed the play Flesh and Blood to the BBC Two season on sex and disability. It was hailed as a breakthrough in the representation of learning disability.{{cite news |title=Beyond bias |url= https://www.theguardian.com/society/2002/sep/18/disability.guardiansocietysupplement|author=Prasad, Raekha|newspaper=The Guardian |date=18 September 2002 |access-date=1 September 2009}} 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 sometimes critically well-received 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",{{cite news |url= https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/occupation-bbc1brdispatches-afghanistans-dirty-war-channel-4-1711236.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220525/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/occupation-bbc1brdispatches-afghanistans-dirty-war-channel-4-1711236.html |archive-date=25 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title= Occupation, BBC1 Dispatches: Afghanistan's Dirty War, Channel 4 |access-date=17 March 2010 |author=Walker, Tim |date=21 June 2006 |newspaper=The Independent}} as well as gaining praise across the wider media. Bowker followed this with another BBC drama, Desperate Romantics, which received mixed reviews, and an adaptation of Emily Brontë's classic novel Wuthering Heights for ITV.

Bowker executive produced both Viva Laughlin and Wuthering Heights.[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0101178/#producer Peter Bowker – Filmography as Producer] IMDB. Retrieved on 8 August 2009.{{cite web |title=Wuthering Heights Press Pack|url=http://www.itv.com/documents/doc/Wuthering%20Heights%20Press%20Pack%202009%20NF.doc|format=DOC|access-date=8 August 2009}} He won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Writer for both 2002, for Flesh and Blood, and 2009, for Occupation.[http://www.rts.org.uk/Info_page_two_pic_2_det.asp?art_id=6085&sec_id=3481 Royal Television Society – Programme – Winners – 2002] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090322020402/http://www.rts.org.uk/Info_page_two_pic_2_det.asp?art_id=6085&sec_id=3481 |date=22 March 2009 }} Retrieved 17 March 2010.{{cite web |title=RTS Programme Awards 2009: The Winners|url= http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a209092/rts-programme-awards-2009-the-winners.html|website=Digital Spy |author=Silverstein, Adam|date=17 March 2010|access-date=17 March 2010}}

Bowker's projects have included an adaptation of Mark Haddon's novel, A Spot of Bother, a medical drama series called Monroe for ITV1, and the biographical BBC film Eric and Ernie about Morecambe and Wise, broadcast on 1 January 2011.{{cite magazine |title=Occupation writer pens BBC1 Morecambe and Wise biopic |url= http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/commissioning/occupation-writer-pens-bbc1-morecambe-and-wise-biopic/5003646.article |author=McMahon, Kate|magazine=Broadcast |date=16 July 2009 |access-date=8 August 2009}}{{cite press release|publisher= ITV Press Centre|url= http://www.itv.com/presscentre/pressreleases/programmepressreleases/monroe/default.html|date= 4 May 2010|access-date= 6 May 2010|title= ITV orders new medical series Monroe starring James Nesbitt|url-status= dead|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110606010014/http://www.itv.com/presscentre/pressreleases/programmepressreleases/monroe/default.html|archive-date= 6 June 2011|df= dmy-all}} In 2015, he wrote the three-part BBC series Capital based on John Lanchester's novel of the same name.{{cite web | title= BBC One: Capital |url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06qrqlf| author=| website= BBC Online | access-date= 24 November 2015}} In 2019, he wrote the Second World War drama World on Fire.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/sep/29/world-on-fire-review-ordinary-lives-caught-up-in-extraordinary-times|title=World on Fire review – ordinary lives caught up in extraordinary times|last=Mangan|first=Lucy|date=2019-09-29|work=The Guardian|access-date=2019-11-20|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}} It was renewed for a second series, which was broadcast in 2023.