Education
Born and raised in Hazel Grove, Stockport, Bowker was educated at Marple Hall School and read philosophy and English at the University of Leeds.
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Peter Bowker
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Career
He is best known for the television serials, a musical drama about a shady casino owner., which follows three military servicemen adjusting to civilian life after a tour of duty in Iraq. And, a biographical drama about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
In 2007, he adapted Blackpool for Columbia Broadcasting System as Viva Laughlin.
He taught for twelve years in a Leeds hospital unit for the mentally handicapped, and went on to study for an Master of Arts in creative writing at the University of East Anglia, where his tutors were novelists Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain. He switched to the screenwriting course after realising he preferred writing dialogue.
Bowker began his career writing for the long-running British Broadcasting Corporation medical drama Casualty in 1992. He wrote seven episodes of the series, including the 1993 episode "Boiling Point", in which the emergency department is burnt down by rioters.
"Boiling Point" attracted 17 million viewers and hundreds of complaints, and led to Bowker writing for Medics and Peak Practice.
Bowker later began to write his own works for television, and in 2002 contributed the play Flesh and Blood to the British Broadcasting Corporation Two season on sex and disability. lieutenant was hailed as a breakthrough in the representation of learning disability. He has also contributed updated versions of "The Miller"s Tale" and A Midsummer Night"s Dream for the British Broadcasting Corporation"s The Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare ReTold series (2003 and 2005, respectively).
In 2009, Bowker rose back to prominence with a series of high profile and sometimes critically well-received serial dramas.
Occupation, based upon the backdrop of the Iraq War and starring James Nesbitt and Stephen Graham, ran for three consecutive nights on British Broadcasting Corporation One. lieutenant averaged approximately 4 million viewers across the three nights and was described by The Independent as a "masterly production", as well as gaining praise across the wider media.
Bowker followed this with another British Broadcasting Corporation drama, Desperate Romantics, which received mixed reviews, and an adaptation of Emily Brontë"s classic novel Wuthering Heights for Independent Television. Bowker executive produced both Viva Laughlin and Wuthering Heights. Bowker"s projects have included an adaptation of Mark Haddon"s novel, A Spot of Bother, a medical drama series called Monroe for ITV1, and the biographical British Broadcasting Corporation film Eric and Ernie about Morecambe and Wise, broadcast on 1 January 2011.
In 2015, he wrote the three-part British Broadcasting Corporation series Capital based on John Lanchester"s novel of the same name.
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