Television work Brocklehurst left journalism to become a full-time screenwriter. He cited
Tony Marchant,
Jimmy McGovern, and
Alan Bleasdale as his writing inspirations. In a
Creative Times feature in 2010, he wrote that
Our Friends in the North was his favourite drama of all time. He wrote several episodes of the
BAFTA award-winning series
Clocking Off, as well as the two-part
BBC film
The Stretford Wives. With
Shameless, he won a BAFTA for series one, co-wrote series two with
Paul Abbott and became lead writer on series three. He left prior to the fourth series. His series
Sorted, a BBC postal drama starring
Hugo Speer, aired in 2006. In 2007, Brocklehurst wrote a film about the
Fathers4Justice campaign for producers Harbour Pictures. His
Company Pictures produced four-part
ITV drama,
Talk To Me, starring
Max Beesley,
Laura Fraser,
Adrian Bower,
Kate Ashfield and
Emma Pierson. He has written episodes of both
Jimmy McGovern's
The Street and crime drama
Accused for
BBC One. In 2011 he wrote a three-part BBC drama,
Exile, starring
John Simm and
Jim Broadbent. It received an average of 5.5 million viewers and an audience appreciation score of 90%. In 2011 it was announced that Brocklehurst would write a new HBO drama,
Dirty, with
Andrea Arnold attached to direct. This project was subsequently developed with
Sharon Horgan and
Amazon. In August 2013, BBC One announced a new drama,
Ordinary Lies, written by Brocklehurst.
The Driver, starring
David Morrissey was announced in January 2014, a three-part drama about a taxi driver who takes a job driving for a criminal. Shown on BBC One, it co-starred
Ian Hart,
Claudie Blakely, and
Colm Meaney. It was co-created by
Jim Poyser and made by
Red Productions and
Highfield Pictures. In January 2015, US network
Showtime announced they were developing a remake of the drama. In February 2014,
HBO announced a project called
A Teacher, which would be co-written by Brocklehurst and
Hannah Fidell, and executive produced by
Mark Duplass. The show, a drama about a teacher/student relationship, based on the film of the same name, did not get made by HBO but was picked up by FX. In 2017 Netflix made
Safe starring
Michael C. Hall, written by Brocklehurst and
Harlan Coben.
Come Home, a three-part BBC drama, aired in April 2018, starring
Christopher Eccleston and
Paula Malcomson.
The Stranger, also co-written with Coben, debuted on Netflix in January 2020, starring
Richard Armitage,
Stephen Rea and
Jennifer Saunders. The first series of
Brassic premiered on Sky in 2019 and was recommissioned for five additional series. It is Sky's most successful comedy since 2012. His Netflix series
Stay Close was the highest rated UK series of 2022. In May 2022, the BBC and
STAN commissioned a new series created by Brocklehurst,
Ten Pound Poms, a drama about the
British citizens who migrated to Australia after the
Second World War, with filming commencing in Australia shortly after. Ten Pound Poms was the highest rating new BBC drama of 2023. In 2024, his drama
Fool Me Once became a smash Netflix hit. The series was number one in 75 countries and is currently the 6th most successful English language Netflix show of all time.
Parish, the American version of his hit UK show
The Driver aired on AMC in 2024, starring
Giancarlo Esposito. Brocklehurst was named in the
Radio Times Top 100 in 2024, of most influential people in television.
Theatre Brocklehurst has written three award-winning plays,
My Eight Times Table,
Nobody and
Loaded (transferred to Radio Four), as well being story adviser and book co-writer of the West End (and national touring) musical
Never Forget. His play
Casual Ties was a Royal Exchange hit in 2014. It is a dissection of modern relationships.
Radio Brocklehurst has written extensively for radio. His detective series
Stone for
Radio 4 is in its ninth series. It stars
Hugo Speer as Detective Inspector John Stone and every episode features a morally complex crime. It has been described as "gritty" (
The Guardian), "hard hitting" (
The Times), and "realistic in a way radio drama rarely is" (
The Observer). He wrote a play about
Margaret Thatcher's
mutually assured destruction policy in the 1980s,
The End of The World, a thriller about a man who seems to have ceased to exist,
Nobody, an Australian set examination of greed,
Loaded and a single drama about an eighty-year-old woman who admits to a series of brutal murders,
Mary Shane. He has appeared as a regular commentator on Radio 4 and 5Live. Brocklehurst wrote the podcast
Ecstasy: The Battle Of Rave that features
David Morrissey,
Monica Dolan,
Ian Hart,
Meera Syal and
Ade Edmondson. It is half drama, half documentary.
Music In 2013, Brocklehurst co-wrote the
Mint Royale song "Ring". ==Filmography==