After turning up at
BBC Radio's Light Entertainment Department, Burton teamed up with
John O'Farrell and the two were commissioned for
Week Ending by
Harry Thompson (who later named his two pet rats Burton and O'Farrell). The pair won the
BBC Light Entertainment Contract Award, and went on to write or contribute to a number of radio series, including
Little Blighty on the Down,
McKay the New and with
Pete Sinclair, the multi-award-winning
A Look Back at the Nineties and
Look Back at the Future in which Burton also performed. Burton also created the BBC Radio 4 panel game ''We've Been Here Before'' presented by Clive Anderson. Burton and O'Farrell were commissioned for
Spitting Image in 1988 and the following year became two of the lead writers on the show. They also wrote for
Clive Anderson Talks Back,
Nick Hancock on
Room 101,
Murder Most Horrid, and co-wrote some of the
Heads to Heads for
Alas Smith and Jones. In 1993, they left
Spitting Image and became the first writers credited for the scripted parts of
Have I Got News For You. Also for
Hat Trick Productions they wrote a
BBC1 sitcom
The Peter Principle starring
Jim Broadbent (known as
The Boss in the US). == Screenwriting ==