Paul Abbott

How Channel 4's No Offence is shaking up police drama

Shameless creator Paul Abbott's latest series is like an X-rated version of The Bill.

Paul Abbott: I don't write for shock value

Paul Abbott has been speaking ahead of his return to Channel 4 next month with new Manchester-based police comedy No Offence.

Paul Abbott interview

Paul Abbott's brilliant new series No Offence is a 'comedy for a crime-addicted audience'. He talks about writing Shameless, his family and his battle with bipolar disorder.

First pictures from the set of No Offence

Shameless writer Paul Abbott has penned No Offence, a comedy drama about police in Manchester, which is now filming across the city.

Caitlin Moran wrote Raised by Wolves with her sister Caz, reimagining their teenage selves as contemporary kids on a Wolverhampton council estate.

Germaine Garry (Helen Monks) and sister Aretha (Alexa Davies) are the eldest of six, home educated and in disagreement about gardening, the correct way to eat Battenberg and the sexual magnetism of local lout Lee Rind. Their lunch looks like a bad food table from You Are What You Eat and their beloved Grampy likes "mellow jazz smokes" and climbing through windows. It sounds miserable, but the effect is pretty joyful.

The parallels with Paul Abbott's Shameless are obvious and Raised by Wolves has the same warmth as early drama from the Chatsworth estate, but with the sharp cultural cleverness (and excellent music) you'd expect from Moran.

Review: Shameless, Channel 4

Familiar faces return for the final episode of Paul Abbott's long-running family drama.

After 11 series and all manner of twists and turns, it's time for Shameless to bow out in fittingly ridiculous fashion. Frank is home after a stint in prison, but Monica has a revelation which leads to the return of familiar faces including Fiona and Kev (Anne-Marie Duff and Dean Lennox Kelly), as Gallagher history threatens to repeat itself. Although Paul Abbott's stylised take on social deprivation lost its way a while back, this final snapshot of the Gallagher clan brings back memories of the show's glory days.

Paul Abbott's rambunctious drama has been in steady decline for years now, so it's time it signed off. Ironically this cracking final episode highlights just where things went wrong: the moment the focus shifted from that clan of lovable rogues, the Gallaghers, to the more straightforwardly criminal Maguires.

But as Frank is released from jail - in for benefit fraud, naturally - and is confronted by an unwanted surprise from Monica, the stage is set for many of the old regulars to return as the Gallaghers feel the push and pull of fractious family relations.

Anne-Marie Duff, Dean Lennox Kelly, Elliott Tittensor, Jody Latham and Kelli Hollis all turn up, but really it's David Threlfall's show to steal. He's never been more nauseating, compelling and heartbreaking as the reprehensible Frank, struggling to face further family responsibility. Will the feckless waster ever appreciate anything more than a party?