Before venturing into plays, he was head of drama at Minsthorpe High School, now
Minsthorpe Community College, where he had attended as a student, and then wrote for the TV series
Brookside and
Grange Hill. While he was at Minsthorpe he taught future actors Adrian Hood (
Preston Front, ''
Up 'n' Under film) and Chris Walker (Doctors
, Coronation Street). A 1993 survey for Plays and Players'' magazine cited Godber as the third most performed playwright in the UK, after Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn. In 2005 he won two
British Academy Children's Awards for
Oddsquad, written and directed on location in
Hull and screened by BBC children's television. His plays are performed across the world,
Bouncers (1977) being the most popular. In 2004 he became a visiting professor of Popular Theatre at
Liverpool Hope University. He has also been professor of drama at
Hull University. In 2011, Godber became creative director at
Theatre Royal Wakefield and set up the John Godber Company as its resident company. ==Style==