Mark Burton

Mark Burton born 23 September 1960 is a British television writer screenwriter television producer film producer and film director After turning up at BBC Radios Light Entertainment Department Burton teamed up with John OFarrell and the two were commissioned for Week Ending by Harry Thompson who later named his two pet rats Burton and OFarrell The pair won the BBCLight Entertainment Contract Award and went on to write or contribute to a number of radio series including Little Blighty on the Down McKay the New and with Pete Sinclair the multiawardwinning A Look Back at the Nineties and Look Back at the Future in which Burton also performed Burton also created the BBC Radio 4 panel game Weve Been Here Before presented by Clive Anderson Burton and OFarrell were commissioned for Spitting Image in 1988 and the following year they became two of the lead writers on the show They also wrote for Clive Anderson Talks Back Nick Hancock on Room 101 Murder Most Horrid and cowrote some of the Heads to Heads for Alas Smith and Jones In 1993 they left Spitting Image and became the first writers credited for the scripted parts of Have I Got News For You Also for Hat Trick Productions they wrote a BBC1 sitcom The Peter Principle starring Jim Broadbent known as The Boss in the US The pair are credited for additional dialogue for the Aardman film Chicken Run but after a decade of collaboration Burton and OFarrell began to work on separate projects Although he continued to do some TV comedy scriptwriting with credits for 2DTV Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Mike Bassett Manager Burton began to focus on screenwriting most notably with DreamWorks Animation Madagascar Other major screenplay credits include Wallace Gromit The Curse of the WereRabbit which won an Oscar in 2006 for Best Animated Feature Film Gnomeo and Juliet and Aliens in the Attic He adapted the novel of his former writing partner for the ITV film May Contain Nuts and also wrote and produced the BBC short film One of Those Days He also wrote and made his directorial debut with Richard Starzak with Shaun the Sheep Movie which got nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature He would later return to write its sequel A Shaun the Sheep Movie Farmageddon with Jon Brown based on a story by Starzak Burton is a musician and songwriter having composed the music for the comedy rock musical The Next Big Thing which he wrote and produced with Pete Sinclair He also shares the credit for the original music in One of Those Days and has written songs and parodies for a number of radio shows Description above from the Wikipedia article Mark Burton licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia