32 Facts About Steven Moffat

Steven William Moffat is a Scottish television writer, television producer and screenwriter.

Steven Moffat is best known for his work as showrunner, writer and executive producer of the science fiction television series Doctor Who and the contemporary crime drama television series Sherlock, based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.

In March 2004, Steven Moffat was announced as one of the writers for the revived Doctor Who TV series.

Steven Moffat wrote six episodes under executive producer Russell T Davies, which aired from 2005 to 2008.

In May 2008, it was announced that Steven Moffat would succeed Davies as showrunner, lead writer and executive producer of Doctor Who.

Steven Moffat won another Hugo for his writing as a Doctor Who showrunner, while his work as a Sherlock showrunner won him a BAFTA Craft Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards.

In January 2016, Steven Moffat announced he would be stepping down from running Doctor Who after six series.

In March 2019, Steven Moffat began production on Dracula, based on Bram Stoker's novel, which was commissioned by BBC One and Netflix and was first broadcast on BBC One in January 2020.

Steven Moffat was born in Paisley, Scotland, where he attended Camphill High School.

Steven Moffat studied at the University of Glasgow, where he was involved with the student television station Glasgow University Student Television.

Steven Moffat's father Bill was a head teacher at Thorn Primary School in Johnstone, Renfrewshire; when the school was used for Harry Secombe's Highway in the late 1980s, Bill mentioned to the producers that he had an idea for a television series about a school newspaper.

The resulting series was titled Press Gang, starring Julia Sawalha and Dexter Fletcher, and it ran for five series on ITV between 1989 and 1993, with Steven Moffat writing all forty-three episodes.

Steven Moffat brought in the character so that all sorts of unfortunate things would happen to him, such as having a typewriter dropped on his foot.

Steven Moffat wrote two series of Joking Apart, which was directed by Spiers and starred Robert Bathurst and Fiona Gillies.

Steven Moffat wrote three episodes of Murder Most Horrid, an anthology series of comedic tales starring Dawn French.

Steven Moffat has been a fan of Doctor Who since childhood.

Steven Moffat's first solo Doctor Who work was a short story, "Continuity Errors", published in the 1996 Virgin Books anthology Decalog 3: Consequences.

Bennett-Jones and his friend and former colleague Andre Ptaszynski, who had worked with Steven Moffat on Joking Apart, told Steven Moffat and Vertue that each fancied the other.

In late 1998, Steven Moffat was approached by Vertue, a producer of Comic Relief, to write a comedic sketch based on the Doctor Who TV series to be aired across Comic Relief's 1999 telethon in several parts on BBC One.

Steven Moffat's first son Joshua was born around 2000, and his second son Louis was born around 2002.

Steven Moffat wrote the original, unbroadcast pilot episode for the US version, titled Coupling, although this was less successful and was cancelled after four episodes on the NBC network.

Steven Moffat blamed its failure on an unprecedented level of network interference.

In December 2003, Steven Moffat received an email offering him to write for Doctor Who, following the announcement of the revival of the series in September.

Steven Moffat wrote six episodes under executive producer Russell T Davies for the 2005 through 2008 series, which were produced from December 2004 to March 2008.

Between Doctor Who episodes, Moffat wrote and produced Jekyll, a modern-day drama series based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, meaning he nearly missed out on writing for the 2007 series of Doctor Who.

In May 2008, the BBC announced that Steven Moffat would be succeeding Davies as lead writer and executive producer of Doctor Who for the show's fifth series, to be broadcast in 2010, although Davies had initiated discussions with Steven Moffat regarding this as far back as July 2007.

Steven Moffat told The Guardian in 2012 that Spielberg was "lovely" about his decision to walk away from his three-film Tintin contract to return to Doctor Who.

The script for the first film in the trilogy, The Adventures of Tintin, was completed by Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, with a part of Steven Moffat's script used in the film.

In June 2015, Steven Moffat was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services to drama.

In January 2016, Steven Moffat announced he was stepping down as Doctor Who lead writer and executive producer after the 2017 series, his sixth series as showrunner, with Chris Chibnall succeeding him at the start of the eleventh series for broadcast in 2018.

In March 2019, Steven Moffat revealed that the first night of production was about to start.

On 13 February 2020, Chichester Festival Theatre announced that the play The Unfriend, written by Steven Moffat, was intended to have its world premiere as part of the 2020 Festival Theatre season in the Minerva Theatre.