John Morton

John Morton is a British writer and director for television and radio, perhaps best known as the creator of People Like Us, which starred Chris Langham as the hapless documentary maker Roy Mallard. He is also the creator and writer of several other comedies for the BBC including The Sunday Format, Broken News, W1A and Twenty Twelve. Career Morton gave up a career as an English teacher to become a writer in 1990. His first success came when BBC Radio accepted his pilot comedy script for People Like Us. It ran for three series on BBC Radio 4 from 1995 and won Sony Radio Award and a Writer's Guild Award for Best Radio Comedy before being adapted for BBC Two (with Langham in the same role) in 1999. Morton went on to create and write the Sony Radio Award-winning satirical newspaper supplement show The Sunday Format for BBC Radio 4 and co-created the BBC One sitcom Kiss Me Kate with Chris Langham. For the launch night of BBC Four in 2001 John wrote the one-off special The Gist, a spoof arts review show presented by Robert Webb. In 2005 Morton teamed up with writer Tony Roche on Broken News, a six-part comedy series about a 24-hour rolling news station which broadcast on BBC Two.