Career

He is best known for his work on The Thick of lieutenant, In The Loop and Veep, and for his collaborations with Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain on Peep Show, Four Lions and The Old Guys. Radio and early television work

Blackwell started his career on British Broadcasting Corporation Radio in 1997, writing for The News Huddlines, The Way lieutenant Is, The Sunday Format and Dead Ringers winning Sony Gold and Silver awards for Dead Ringers and The Sunday Format respectively. Early television work at this time included The 11 O"Clock Show, Bremner, Bird and Fortune and V Graham Norton.

Blackwell also created and wrote the street-talking World World War II Pilots for The Armstrong and Miller Show.

With Armando Iannucci

Blackwell first worked with Armando Iannucci in 2003 on the topical Channel 4 show Gash, and has written on every episode of the political sitcom The Thick of lieutenant since its first series in 2005. In 2009 Blackwell co-wrote Iannucci"s film In The Loop, a spin-off from The Thick of lieutenant about the build-up to a war in the Middle East.

Other work with Iannucci includes 2004: The Stupid Version and Time Trumpet. With Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong

Blackwell wrote for Chris Morris"s 2010 British Academy of Film and Television Arts award-winning black comedy film Four Lions, alongside Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain.

He had previously collaborated with them on the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show and British Broadcasting Corporation One"s The Old Guys, and with Armstrong as part of the writing team for The Thick of lieutenant and In the Loop.

Trying Again

With Chris Addison Blackwell co-created Trying Again, a romantic comedy about life after an affair, shown on the Sky Living channel. The first episode was broadcast on 24 April 2014.

Achievements

• Over the next decade Blackwell worked on seven series of Have I Got News Foreign You, as well as the International Emmy award-winning The Kumars at Number. 42, Alastair McGowan"s Big Impression, Dead Ringers, and The Sketch Show, which won the 2003 British Academy of Film and Television Arts for Best Comedy. The show won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts for Best Sitcom in 2006 and again in 2010. Awards included Best Screenplay at the Evening Standard Film Awards, and the British Independent Film Awards 2009 and the film was nominated for two BAFTAs and an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. The two collaborated again on the Home Box Office comedy Veep, with Blackwell co-writing the pilot episode and serving as writer and executive producer on the subsequent four seasons, for which he won two Primetime Emmy Awards and was nominated for a further four.