Christopher Antony Chibnall (born 21 March 1970) is an English television writer and producer, best known as the creator and writer of the award-winning ITV mystery-crime drama Broadchurch (2013–17) and as the third showrunner of the 2005 revival of the BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who (2018–22). Chibnall wrote five episodes of the series under previous showrunners Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat, and he was also the head writer for the first two series of the spinoff Torchwood (2006–08).
Contents
Early life and career
Chibnall was brought up in Formby, Merseyside. He studied drama at St Mary's University, Twickenham, subsequently gaining an MA in Theatre and Film from the University of Sheffield. His early career included work as a football archivist and floor manager for Sky Sports, before leaving to work as an administrator for various theatre companies. From 1996 to 1999 he worked as administrator with the experimental theatre company Complicité (where he met his wife Madeline), before leaving to become a full-time writer.
Career
Theatre writing
Chibnall's first short play was produced as part of Contact Theatre's Young Playwright's Festival in 1988, and was directed by Lawrence Till. While studying at college, he wrote two plays, Victims and Now We Are Free, which were performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and directed by Edward Lewis. In 1998, he became Writer in Residence with GRiP Theatre Company, writing three full-length plays, including Best Daze and Gaffer! and several short plays. Chibnall's successor as Writer in Residence was Matthew Broughton. Gaffer! was revived at Southwark Playhouse in 2004.
Chibnall took part in an attachment at the Royal National Theatre Studio in 1999, followed by a year-long attachment to Soho Theatre in 2000, which resulted in his play Kiss Me Like You Mean It, produced at Soho Theatre and directed by Abigail Morris. Its cast included Catherine McCormack, Jason Hughes, Marlene Sidaway and Harry Towb. The play was shortlisted for the Meyer-Whitworth Award, and has subsequently been produced in various venues around the world, including a successful three-month run in Paris in 2004.
In February 2024, Chibnall's play, One Last Push, premiered at Salisbury Playhouse.
Television writing
Chibnall's first produced script for television was the successful monologue Stormin' Norman, starring James Bolam, made by Carlton Television for ITV.
In 2001 he was approached, together with writer Nigel McCrery, to develop the format for a drama series which became Born and Bred. With a cast including Bolam and Michael French, Born and Bred ran on BBC One for four years from 2002 to 2005. Chibnall served as head writer and consultant producer (later executive producer), writing seventeen of its thirty-six hour-long episodes.
Chibnall was the only writer other than the show's creators to write for both series of the double International Emmy-award-winning BBC One police drama Life on Mars (2006–07). He was part of the production team who accepted the 2007 BAFTA Audience Award onstage at the London Palladium.
During 2005, Chibnall was in charge of developing a proposed fantasy series involving the mythical magician Merlin for BBC One's early Saturday evening family drama slot. Despite several scripts being written, BBC Head of Drama Jane Tranter eventually decided not to green-light the project, although it later emerged, without Chibnall's involvement, as Merlin (2008–2012).
In 2007, Dick Wolf and Kudos Film and Television selected Chibnall to become the show runner on ITV1's Law & Order: UK, a police procedural/legal drama based on the original US series. Chibnall was the lead writer and executive producer, writing six of the first thirteen episodes based on scripts from the US series. ITV commissioned a second run of thirteen episodes, but having set up the series Chibnall made the decision to leave the programme, to focus on other writing projects.
Chibnall also show-ran Camelot, an adult retelling of the Arthurian legend for the Starz network. It went to air early in April 2011 and was filmed in Ardmore Studios near Dublin. The show was cancelled after a single season, though again Chibnall claimed he had chosen not to be involved in the second series in any case, due to other writing priorities.
In December 2013, Chibnall wrote a two-part dramatisation The Great Train Robbery, which tells the story of the Great Train Robbery on 8 August 1963. Coincidentally, the first part was shown on the same day that train robber Ronnie Biggs died.
Novels
Chibnall's debut crime novel Death at the White Hart was published by Penguin Books in March 2025, and became a Sunday Times bestseller. Set in a fictional town in Dorset, in a similar mould to Broadchurch, DS Nicola Bridge and DC Harry Ward, investigate a murder in a village whose residents all keep hidden secrets.
Before the novel had been published, it was announced that ITV had commissioned a TV adaptation from Chibnall to be aired on ITV1 and distributed internationally.
The sequel, The Parkwood Murders, featuring the same detectives, will be published on 16 July 2026.
Personal life
In the 1990s, Chibnall met Madeline Joinson, a producer for the company Out of Joint. They were married in 2002. They have two sons, born 2003 and 2006.