Angry young man
Grit is at the heart of any McGovern script and it's easy to see why. Born into a working-class Catholic family in 1949, Liverpudlian Jimmy was one of nine children. He was bright but he didn't say much and had developed a stammer by the time he arrived at a Jesuit grammar school. A series of dead-end jobs followed school and he found himself married with three children by the age of 23. Searching for direction in life, Jimmy attended writers' workshops and trained as a teacher. But he became disillusioned with a system he felt was failing Britain's youth. Eventually he began to pursue writing more seriously and had some work performed in local theatres. What he needed now was a regular gig.

"Calm down, now, Mattie lad!"
That gig turned out to be just down the road. As a scriptwriter for Brookside between 1983 and 1989, Jimmy wrote countless tirades for the fiery Bobby Grant, played by Ricky Tomlinson. He turned in around 80 scripts for the groundbreaking Merseyside soap, often battling producers to accept storylines he felt reflected the reality of working class life. Brookie established Jimmy as a professional writer and work followed for the BBC, including an award-winning play, Needle. This drama attracted the attention of producer Gub Neal, who was looking for a writer to bring a character called Jim Cracker to life. Cracker was a criminal psychologist with a self-destructive streak. He liked a drink and he loved a bet...

It's all in the head
Jim Cracker turned into Doctor Edward Fitzgerald, of course, as one of the most lauded and influential television crime dramas ever made began to take shape in Jimmy's hands. Once Robbie Coltrane was cast as Fitz there was no stopping Jimmy. Cracker's storylines were more than merely hard-hitting. They tackled all the big issues of the day, from the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster to ritual killing and rape in the workplace. Though the drama is always high-octane in Cracker, it's never simplified and it's never without a moral reference point: "Often I give the insane people beautiful lines," Jimmy explains. "But they have killed people and they will suffer for it."

Something to say
The huge success of Cracker meant that Jimmy was in demand and free to pursue new ideas. He didn't hang around. In 1994, he wrote Priest, starring Linus Roache as a homosexual priest who discovers one of his parishioners is a victim of incest. Hillsborough (1996) was a searing drama-documentary tracing the long fight for justice by relatives of Hillsborough victims. In Liam (2001), Jimmy explores the effects of poverty and racism on a 1930s Liverpudlian family. He also found time to create The Lakes, a drama serial following the turbulent lives of young catering workers in the Lake District.

History lessons
More recently, Jimmy has turned to history for inspiration. Gunpowder, Treason and Plot, starred Robert Carlyle as James I, the king who foils Guy Fawkes and his fellow Catholic plotters. Jimmy clearly has a soft spot for that period in history. He's currently working on a screenplay for a Ridley Scott-produced film, Mary Queen of Scots. What will get McGovern fans most excited, though, is news that Cracker may be returning to our screens. Granada has confirmed that Robbie Coltrane and Jimmy McGovern are interested in working on a new Cracker special together.

Find out more

Jimmy McGovern page on IMDB

Unofficial Cracker site

BBC's Gunpowder, Treason and Plot site