Paul Makin

Published Friday 18 July 2008 at 16:00 by Patrick Newley

Comedy scriptwriter Paul Makin was best known for his surreal Channel 4 sitcom Nightingales (1990-93) which featured three security guards whiling away their hours with offbeat conversation and practical jokes.

The television equivalent to Waiting for Godot, the series starred Robert Lindsay, David Threfall and James Ellis.

Makin also scripted A Kind of Living, Taking The Floor and he contributed to several episodes of the wartime sitcom Shine On Harvey Moon.

Born in Wolverhampton on August 9, 1953, he left school at 15 to work in a metal factory, but two years later he left and trained to be an actor at Coventry Drama School. In 1976 he joined the Belgrade Theatre Coventry as an assistant stage manager where he remained for four years.

Deciding on a career as a comedy scriptwriter, he began contributing episodes to series such as Marks and Gran’s Relative Strangers and Roll Over Beethoven. His first own original series was A Kind of Living (1988-90) which starred Richard Griffiths as a frustrated schoolmaster who fails to look on the bright side of life.

Nightingales moved him to the forefront of top British TV comedy scriptwriters and this was followed by the ballroom dancing comedy Taking the Floor (1991) which featured Matthew Cottle and Barbara Durkin. Another sitcom, Grown-ups, followed in 1997.

Makin also wrote several episodes of Marks and Gran’s Goodnight Sweeheart (1993-97), the time travelling sitcom starring Nicholas Lyndhurst.

Makin died of a brain tumour on July 4, 2008. He is survived by his wife Liz and two daughters.