Peter Moffat

Alexander Peter Moffat (born 2 June 1962)[1][2] is a British playwright and screenwriter.

For other people named Peter Moffat, see Peter Moffat (disambiguation).

Early life

Moffat was born in Edinburgh, Scotland,[1] to John Laidlaw Moffat, who was in the Royal Military Police, and Norma Guthrie. His grandfather and great-grandfather were shepherds in Tweedsmuir.[3] Their lives inspired his TV series The Village. Moffat's father joined the Colonial Police Force in Tanganyika and later the Army, so the family, including young Peter, moved from country to country every two years,[4] which inspired his series The Last Post.[5]

Career

Moffat's first play was Fine and Private Place and was broadcast on BBC Radio in 1997.[6] His best-known plays are Nabokov's Gloves and Iona Rain.[7]

Moffat is a former barrister; one of his early commissions was for an episode of Kavanagh QC. He has since created three British television legal dramas: North Square, Criminal Justice and Silk. He also wrote the miniseries Cambridge Spies and the television film Einstein and Eddington, as well as a reinterpretation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth for the BBC's ShakespeaRe-Told series.[8]

Moffat wrote the historical drama The Village, depicting life in a Derbyshire village through the eyes of a central character, Bert Middleton. The first series, covering the years 1914 to 1920 in six episodes, premiered on BBC1 in 2013, and a second and final series, set in the 1920s, was made in 2014.[9] Moffat envisions more series totalling up to 42 episodes that will continue the story through the 20th century. The proposed project is similar to the German film series Heimat, written and directed by Edgar Reitz, which told the story of a German family from 1919 to 2000.[10]

The BBC broadcast Moffat's drama series Undercover in 2016.[11] Moffat took inspiration for the fictional drama from real-life revelations about British police officers who had formed long-term relationships with activists they were investigating while undercover, as well as from the London Metropolitan Police Service's secret surveillance of the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.[12]

His drama series Your Honor, starring Bryan Cranston as a conflicted New Orleans judge, began its run on Showtime on 6 December 2020.

Awards

Moffat won the Writer's Award from the Broadcasting Press Guild for North Square,[13] and was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2004 for writing Hawking, a TV drama about the scientist Stephen Hawking.[14] In 2009, he was awarded two BAFTAs for Criminal Justice, one for Best Television Drama Serial[15] and one for Best Craft Writer.[16]

Personal life

Peter Moffat is married to barrister and author Leonora Klein[17] and has two children.[4]

References
  1. "Peter Moffat". BFI. Retrieved 18 January 2021.
  2. "HBO's 'The Night Of': How Peter Moffat, Who Wrote the BBC's Original Version, Inspired the Story". The Hollywood Reporter. 30 July 2016. Retrieved 18 January 2021.
  3. Hendry, Steve (31 March 2013). "TV writer Peter Moffat reveals the Scottish roots behind epic drama The Village". Daily Record. Retrieved 18 January 2021.
  4. "TV writer Peter Moffat reveals the Scottish roots behind epic drama The Village"
  5. Nordine, Michael (27 November 2017). "'The Last Post' Trailer: Peter Moffat Follows Up 'The Night Of' With a Period Drama for Amazon — Watch". IndieWire. Retrieved 18 January 2021.
  6. "IPF Achievements 1986 – 2002". International Playwrighting Festival. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
  7. Morley, Sheridan: But at the Jermyn, a Glorious Musical Mockery : A Murky 'Nabokov's Gloves', International Herald Tribune, 27 May 1998.
  8. Lowry, Brian: Review: ShakespeaRe-Told, Variety, 4 August 2006.
  9. "Filming starts on second series of BBC One's The Village". BBC Media Centre. 28 March 2014. Retrieved 15 June 2014.
  10. Gilbert, Gerard (14 March 2013). "A very British Heimat: Will BBC drama The Village be as epic as the German saga?". Independent. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  11. "Undercover: Episode 1: Credits". BBC. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
  12. McKay, Alastair (31 March 2016). "Undercover: Peter Moffat on making a drama out of a lie". BBC. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  13. 2001 Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, Broadcasting Press Guild, 2001.
  14. Television Nominations 2004, 2004.
  15. Television Awards Winners in 2009
  16. Television Craft Awards Winners in 2009
  17. Galloway, Stephen (30 July 2016). "How HBO's 'The Night Of' Was Inspired By One Real-Life Lawyer's Encounters With Crime and Punishment". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
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