Television In 1982, McGovern started his TV career working on
Channel 4's soap opera
Brookside. He tackled many social issues in the course of the series, especially unemployment – which was at a post-war high at the time. In 1993, he created the drama serial
Cracker, about the work of a fictional criminal psychologist played by
Robbie Coltrane. Made by
Granada Television and screened on
ITV, the series was a critical and popular success, lasting until 1995.
Cracker also aired in the United States, on the
Arts and Entertainment cable network. McGovern's writing earned him two
Edgar Awards from the
Mystery Writers of America. In 1997 he created
The Lakes, a drama that shared ''Brookside's
realist setting and reused themes from Cracker,
such as gambling addiction. In 2006, he created the BBC One drama, The Street''; its third and final series aired in 2009. McGovern also wrote the script for the television
docudrama Hillsborough (1996), based on the events of the
stadium disaster in 1989, which claimed the lives of 97
Liverpool fans at an
FA Cup semi-final. Among the cast of this drama was
Christopher Eccleston, who also featured in
Cracker, along with former
Brookside actor
Ricky Tomlinson. Eccleston later said it was the most important work he'd ever done. Newspapers cited
Hillsborough as a factor in a new inquiry set up in 1997. In 2009, McGovern was the executive producer on the BBC One miniseries
Moving On. His series
Accused aired from 2010 to 2012 on BBC One. It followed a similar format to
The Street but with a crime component. The series' writers included McGovern,
Danny Brocklehurst, Alice Nutter and Shaun Duggan. It was produced by Sita Williams. In 2012, McGovern and local Indigenous Australian writers from
Sydney developed the Australian television drama series
Redfern Now, set among the
Indigenous Australians of the Sydney suburb of
Redfern. The six-part series follows a similar format to
Accused, telling the stories of six inner-city households in one street whose lives are changed by a seemingly insignificant incident. The series debuted on 1 November 2012, was produced by
Blackfella Films and has been commissioned for a second series. In June 2021, McGovern's series
Time, starring
Sean Bean and
Stephen Graham, aired on
BBC One. The series was directed by
Lewis Arnold. It won the BAFTA for best miniseries in 2022.
Film McGovern wrote the screenplay for the 1994 drama,
Priest.
Stage McGovern wrote the book for the musical stage show
King Cotton, which explores links between the
Atlantic slave trade and
industrialisation in
North West England, as part of the
Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008.
King Cotton premiered at
the Lowry in September 2007 before moving to the
Liverpool Empire.
Views on writing McGovern has described cinema scriptwriters as being treated poorly and required to produce an abundance of drafts by successive producers. McGovern has openly criticised dramas such as ''
Footballers' Wives lamenting the lack of quality, believable storytelling in the early 2000s. He believes that television directors are underrated. He says: "I have worked twice with David Blair" on The Lakes
and The Street'', "and I can tell you that he is the best there is. He can make a good project great... Why David hasn’t won the acclaim he deserves is a mystery to me". ==Filmography==