Steven Moffat

Steven Moffat was the current lead Writer and Executive Producer of Doctor Who.

Moffat was born in Paisley, Scotland, where he attended Camphill High School. He studied at the University of Glasgow, where he was involved with the student television station, GUST After gaining an MA degree in English from Glasgow, he worked as a teacher for three years at Cowdenknowes High School, Greenock.

Moffat's first television work was the teen drama series Press Gang starring Julia Sawalha and Dexter Fletcher, which ran for five series on ITV between 1989 and 1993, with Moffat writing all forty-three episodes. The programme won a BAFTA award in its second series. His first sitcom, Joking Apart, was inspired by the breakdown of his first marriage; conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based upon the development of his relationship with television producer Sue Vertue. he also wrote Chalk, a sitcom set in a comprehensive school inspired by his own experience as an English teacher.

He wrote the Hartswood Films drama series Jekyll, a modern version of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which aired on BBC One in June and July 2007. In 2008 he scripted the first The Adventures of Tintin film for director Steven Spielberg. He co-created Sherlock, an adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories.

Moffat has been a fan of Doctor Who since childhood. His first professional contribution to Doctor Who was a prose story, "Continuity Errors", which was published in the 1996 Virgin Books anthology Decalog 3: Consequences. In 1999 he scripted the parody Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death, which aired as part of Comic Relief's Red Nose Day charity telethon. In 2004 Moffat was signed to write for the revival of Doctor Who. His contribution for the 2005 series was the Hugo Award-winning two-part story The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances. He wrote an episode for each of the two following series of Doctor Who: The Girl in the Fireplace in the 2006 series and Blink in the 2007 series.

The BBC announced in May 2008 during Moffat's latest contribution, Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead, that he would be taking over from Russell T Davies as head writer and executive producer for the revived show's fifth series, to be broadcast in 2010. As executive producer and head writer, he was significantly involved in casting Matt Smith as the Eleventh and Peter Capaldi as the Tweflth Doctor.

At the same time as his involvement with Doctor Who, Moffat also co-devised a modern-day take on the stories of Sherlock Holmes alongside writer Mark Gatiss. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson, Sherlock has enjoyed three series and a Christmas Special, with a fourth series due to be filmed in 2016. The show has gone on to win several BAFTA awards, and has also received international acclaim in the Emmys.

On 22nd January 2016 the BBC announced that Moffat would be stepping down as the lead writer of Doctor Who after completion of the tenth series, which would be broadcast in 2017, with his successor to be Chris Chibnall.