Corrie writer profile: Carmel Morgan

Sources: Writers’ Company, Larkin Society

Carmel Morgan grew up in a spam coloured council bungalow near Oxford. She graduated in Liverpool in 1987 and spent ten years working as a press officer, but longed to become a writer. After many years of idle optimism, she finally began writing full-time in 1999, serving an apprenticeship on the second series of The Royle Family. In July 1999 Carmel landed her dream job when her trial script for the groundbreaking Channel 4 soap Brookside was given the thumbs up. She went on to write over forty episodes of Brookie before joining Coronation Street in 2002.

Still a regular Corrie writer, she took time out to pen an episode of Paul Abbott's Shameless and more recently, to write a stage play for Dawn French and Alison Moyet. The play, Smaller, toured for six weeks at the beginning of 2006 before an extended run in the West End.

Carmel co-created Drop Dead Gorgeous which centred on an ordinary family's bruising encounter with fame. The series starred two ex-Corrie faves, Lee Boardman, who played Jez Quigley, and Kathryn Hunt, who played Angela Harris.

Carmel is a member of the Philip Larkin society and explains on the Larkin Society website why she chose one of Larkin’s poems to feature in an episode of Coronation Street: “I included 'Born Yesterday' in the episode of Coronation Street for 19th March 2004. It was the christening of Tracy Barlow's baby, and 'Born Yesterday' is the reading. Unfortunately the obligatory soap fracas curtailed its beautiful ending, but I scripted it so we heard the lion's share. I was delighted to be able to plug my favourite Larkin poem - and it was perfectly suited to the storyline. I'm proud to write for Corrie and honoured to honour Philip Larkin".

And finally, I have it on good authority that, like me, Carmel is a huge fan of singer Alison Moyet. So much so, that she managed to include Alison on a real-life name check when Cilla Battersby-Brown was selling stuff on eBay. Attagirl.

To read the profile of Corrie writer Jonathan Harvey, click here.