Russell T Davies

Russell T Davies was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022.

Russell T Davies was awarded the 2006 Dennis Potter Award at BAFTA for his writing services to television and an OBE in the Queen’s 2008 Birthday Honours list for services to drama.

Russell was born in Swansea in 1963. A graduate of Oxford University, he completed the BBC Director’s course before becoming a TV producer. He started writing whilst working in the Manchester department of Children’s BBC. He has created several award-winning series including the ground-breaking Queer as Folk, Bob and Rose for which he won the British Comedy Award for Writer of the Year and Best Comedy Drama, The Second Coming for which he won the RTS Award for Best Network Drama and Broadcast Award’s Best Single Drama. He went on to revive the classic British science fiction series Doctor Who which received numerous awards and for which Russell won the BAFTA for Best Drama Series, and Torchwood for which he won the BAFTA Cymru for Best Drama Series. He created the trilogy Cucumber, Banana and Tofu for which he won the BAFTA for Best Drama Writer and BPG Innovation Award in 2016. He adapted A Very English Scandal on BBC 1 for which he won the Rose d’Or Award for Best Limited Series and TV Movie and Broadcast News Award for Drama of the Year 2018. He wrote the 6-part drama Years and Years for BBC One/HBO starring Emma Thompson and Anne Reid and more recently, he wrote the acclaimed 5-part series It’s a Sin for Channel 4/HBO MAX which depicts the lives of a group of gay men and their friends who lived during the HIV/AIDS crisis in the UK, which has received numerous awards.  Currently he has written a 3-part drama called Nolly starring Helena Bonham Carter which goes into production in Spring 2022, and he is also taking over as showrunner on DOCTOR WHO.

In 2015 he received the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for his Outstanding Contribution to Writing and in 2017 he was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award at the Edinburgh TV Festival.  In 2019 he received the h100 award in the Television Broadcast Category, a Lifetime Achievement Award from Pink News and also the Judges Award at the 2019 RTS North West Awards. In 2021, Russell accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Royal Television Society at the RTS Programme Awards.