43 Facts About Mike Bullen

Mike Bullen left with a degree in history of art and became a radio producer for the BBC World Service.

Unhappy with the quality of British television targeted at people his age, Mike Bullen took a course in screenwriting and developed a one-off comedy drama for Granada Television.

Mike Bullen wrote two more series for Granada; Life Begins, which ran for three years, and All About George, which ran for only one.

Mike Bullen's works have been described as being "about the intricacies of interpersonal relationships and what happens when they break down".

Mike Bullen moved with his wife and two children to Australia in 2002.

Mike Bullen returned to producing work for British television in 2010 with the BBC pilot Reunited, and moved back to the UK in 2011.

Mike Bullen's father, Alex, was a chemical engineer, and his mother, Joan, was a housewife.

Mike Bullen did not enjoy the subject, so switched to history of art.

Mike Bullen's first experiences of writing came when he was a child and wrote a newspaper for his neighbours.

Mike Bullen quit the job to go backpacking in south-east Asia.

Mike Bullen eventually began freelance work for the BBC World Service, where he was a presenter and producer for the magazine programmes On Screen and Outlook.

In 1994, aged 34, Mike Bullen began thinking about writing a television script, based on the idea that he could "write crap" on television.

Mike Bullen was inspired in particular by the American television series Hill Street Blues and Thirtysomething.

Mike Bullen began work on scripts for Pie in the Sky and Soldier Soldier but did not complete either.

Mike Bullen began writing another script, this time drawing on his American television influences.

Mike Bullen secured an agent, who managed to sell the script on spec to Andy Harries, controller of comedy at Granada Television.

Mike Bullen pitched the idea of a traditional "boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-wins-girl-back" story told from both sides of the relationship but using elements of fantasy and flashback to distort events to fit a character's point of view.

Harries accepted the pitch and Mike Bullen began work on Cold Feet.

Mike Bullen developed a supporting cast for Cold Feet, basing each character on friends of his.

Mike Bullen continued his method of developing storylines based on his own life; he and his wife had their first child in the latter half of 1997, so he integrated their experiences into the storyline of characters Pete and Jenny, who have their first child in Cold Feets first episode.

Mike Bullen moved from his home in London to Cambridge, where he was able to write for two full days a week and at evenings and weekends.

Mike Bullen worked on projects at the same time as Cold Feet: After watching the 1997 docusoap Holiday Reps, he became interested in what happens in the personal lives of holiday representatives while in foreign countries.

Mike Bullen shared writing duties with Lizzie Mickery and Sally Wainwright.

The project never moved beyond planning stages because Mike Bullen believed that British political issues such as "cod wars with Spain" are not as "sexy" as the issues covered in The West Wing.

Mike Bullen wrote the screenplay for one of the pilot episodes.

Mike Bullen believed that the production team had covered all potential storylines in the first two series, so declined to write any more episodes.

The writing process had made Mike Bullen think twice about not writing and he began thinking about further storylines, such as mid-life crises and IVF.

Mike Bullen announced that he did not want to write a fifth series, and that the fourth would be the last.

Mike Bullen's reasons were that with ITV's proposed commission of up to 20 episodes a year, the series would become like a soap opera.

The popularity of the fourth series persuaded Mike Bullen to write four more episodes that formed the fifth series in 2003.

Mike Bullen moved to Australia in 2002 but continued to work on UK-based series.

Mike Bullen researched Maggie's travel agency job by spending a week at a travel agents' in Bristol.

In 2003 Mike Bullen made a journey to Perth's Small Screen Big Picture.

The short, entitled Amorality Tale, which marked Mike Bullen's directorial debut, was screened at various film festivals in 2005, and was a finalist for the first Rosemount Diamond at the Jackson Hole Film Festival.

Alongside the second series of Life Begins, Mike Bullen continued developing George the Third.

In 2007, Mike Bullen was approached by David Maher, a Fox World producer, who commissioned him to write a television pilot for UKTV.

Mike Bullen agreed and spent a "torturous" time trying to come up with an idea for the script.

Green suggested asking Mike Bullen to write the episode and Mike Bullen responded by asking Green if he would like to play the lead in Make or Break.

In 2010, Mike Bullen wrote his first screenplay for the BBC since Sunburn; Reunited is a pilot about six friends who once shared a house together reuniting after eight years.

Mike Bullen admitted that his career was "declining" before he made Reunited, and he even moved back to the UK for five months while it was produced.

Mike Bullen considers Reunited his best work since the end of Cold Feet.

Mike Bullen has since discussed other projects with Ed Byrne, one of the actors in the pilot.

Mike Bullen is married to Lisa Mike Bullen, whom he met while working at the BBC.