Peter Harness

Background

He grew up in Hornsea, East Yorkshire and attended Oriel College, Oxford where he studied English and graduated with a first.

Education

Oriel College.

Career

He is a former president of the Oxford Revue. Mongoose, his first original stage play, was performed at the Southwark Playhouse in 2003 (directed by Thea Sharrock) and later at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh and the Trafalgar Studios, London. The text is published by Nick Hern Books.

In 2005, he adapted the Mont Rose James short story "A View From A Hill" for BBC4.

lieutenant was the first in a new annual series of British Broadcasting Corporation Ghost Stories for Christmas. Harness went on to write several other single films for BBC4, including a biopic of Frankie Howerd, Rather You Than Maine, starring David Walliams and Rafe Spall, which was part of the Curse of Comedy season, as well as the Spanish Flu drama, The Forgotten Fallen, starring Bill Paterson, Mark Gatiss and Charlotte Riley, which dealt with the efforts of a medical team in Manchester to combat the disease in 1918.

Harness was the writer of the third series of the British Broadcasting Corporation"s Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh. This comprised three films: The Dogs of Riga, Before the Frost, and a new story developed by Henning Mankell and Harness called An Event in Autumn.

On 8 October 2014 it was announced that he would return to the series to script the final, two-part adaptation of Mankell"s last Wallander novel, The Troubled Manitoba

Aside from Wallander, Harness has worked on several other successful series. City of Vice, starring Ian McDiarmid and Iain Glen, was shown on Channel Four to critical acclaim. Harness (along with co-writer Clive Bradley) was nominated for a Writers Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Series.

In 2011, he adapted Kate Atkinson"s novel When Will There Be Good News? as part of the BBC1 series Case Histories, starring Jason Isaacs as private detective Jackson Brodie.

Harness also adapted the fourth Jackson Brodie book, Started Early, Took My Dog for the second series of Case Histories, which filmed in Summer 2012. His first original screenplay, Is Anybody There? was filmed by award-winning Irish director John Crowley in 2007.

The movie, set in an old people"s home, starred Michael Caine, David Morrissey, Anne-Marie Duff and Bill Milner. lieutenant was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, 2008, and released theatrically across Europe and the United States in 2009.

Harness was nominated for a Writers Guild Award for the film.

He has also been active in the Malmö theatre community as part of the theatre group Teater Insite both as an actor and a writer In November 2012 it was announced that he would adapt Susanna Clarke"s novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell into a television series of the same name. In April 2014 it was announced that he would be writing the seventh episode for the eighth series of Doctor Who, starring Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor.

The episode is titled "Kill the Moon".

On 8 May 2015, the British Broadcasting Corporation press office officially confirmed Harness would be writing a 2-part story titled "The Zygon Invasion" and "The Zygon Inversion" (the latter co-written with Steven Moffat) for the ninth series of Doctor Who. The story sees the return of UNIT, Jemma Redgrave, Ingrid Oliver and the Zygons.

Achievements

• He was one of Screen International"s Stars of Tomorrow, 2007 and is a recipient of the Dennis Potter Screenwriting Award. Harness"s episodes of the series won a Scottish British Academy of Film and Television Arts for Best Television Drama, 2011.