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From Doctor Who to Tip Toe, Queer as Folk to Coronation Street, Britain’s foremost television writer and showrunner takes us behind the scenes of some of the nation’s most beloved programmes.

This is the story of my life in TV.

My life is my material. There is sadness in everyone’s life. Everyone’s got someone who’s died. Everyone’s sat in a hospital waiting room. Everyone’s had a heartbreak. Every single person in the world has fancied someone who hasn’t fancied them back.

And if you dig deep enough, you can imagine an entire drama out of that. I wrote Queer as Folk based on my young gay self; It’s a Sin went back to my experience as a teenager, and middle-aged me wrote Cucumber. That’s what I’ve been doing all these years. And the door is still open for more.

I’ve lived my life through television. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Now, if this was a script, my note would be: ‘Get on with it.’

So off we go.