Mark Billingham

Tony Robinson, David Lloyd and Mark Billingham (in particular) remain friends, after having worked so closely together for four-to-five years, and Robinson can be seen taking partial credit for Billingham's literary career on the DVD release of Maid Marian (Series 3), in which the three discuss writing, both for the series and in general. The three announced in 2018 that they were working on a stage production of Maid Marian and her Merry Men.

His standalone novel In The Dark was adapted as a miniseries of the same name by the BBC in 2017. An adaptation of another standalone novel, Rush Of Blood, is currently being developed for US television.

2015 Dagger in the Library UK Crime Writers' Association award for an author's body of work in British libraries (UK) Mark Billingham shortlisted

In September 2015 Billingham and co-host Michael Carlson released the six-part podcast The Crime Vault Live, with the last episode released in January 2016.

From an early age, Billingham can remember writing, often "funny" stories for purposes of popularity and enjoyment. As he grew older, and his interests moved towards crime fiction, he began to skew his writing that way, setting an early novel (the as-yet unpublished The Mechanic) in his native Birmingham. Inspired by the comic-crime work of Carl Hiaasen and other authors, he attempted to use his experience as a stand-up comedian and crime fan to write a similarly comic novel. Ultimately he abandoned his unfinished novel and the comic-crime genre to focus on his other idea—a book that would become Sleepyhead.

Billingham's own website says that the underlying determination of Tom Thorne's character was that he would evolve as the series progressed, and remain unpredictable. While noting that many authors compile "thick dossiers" and "complex biographies" about their characters, noting every quirk and minor detail, Billingham shies away from such minutiae, calling it "limiting"—preferring instead to discover something anew about his own hero with each book, and to pass that novelty on to the reader:

Thorne's internal continuity is important to his author—it is important that the events in his past affect who is in the present, although this very aspect of his character causes Billingham great difficulty in describing him without giving away plot twists. Suffice to say that "[h]e works on the Metropolitan Police Murder Squad [and at] the time of the first book, he is forty-one years old". Thorne's surname comes from fellow Comedy Store stand-up Paul Thorne, and the (sur)names of other comics and comedians are liberally peppered throughout the series.

After three successful award-winning series, both Billingham and Lloyd were helping creator-writer Robinson with plot and script ideas, both gaining co-writer credits on the first episode of series 4 – "Tunnel Vision". The episode produced spoofs of a number of cultural icons, including passing references to Sonic the Hedgehog and Dungeons & Dragons, as well as a Richard O'Brien stand-in named "Robin O'Hood" who in the episode leads Gary and Graeme through the Merry Men's version of The Crystal Maze.

As he has stated in a number of interviews, Billingham treats comedy – and his stand-up in particular – and writing as parts of a whole, seeing the two as complementary, using as they do:

[You] worry that you will be entering that world of the strange cliche-ed cop, but you soon realise that you have to get comfortable in that world. You think "Hang on, some of the clichés are part of that territory". It would like writing a Western and going "Oh no I've given him a horse! What a terrible cliché!" It's not a cliché – It's part and parcel of the genre – cowboys have six-guns, horses and stetsons and detectives have [a] past... problems [and] flaws, because if they don't, then there is nothing to read about.

The two were kept bound and gagged in their hotel room by a trio of masked men who stole items and credit cards from them. Billingham recalls being terrified by the sheer audacity of the criminals, who managed to instill a feeling of menace and fear into their victims, a theme which was later fed into his novels–"that if one person is able to scare someone so much, they can make them do anything". The Scaredy Cat storyline thus presents the scenario of tandem serial killers, two individuals ostensibly working together, creating an added air of terror and expectation whenever one of them strikes.

Sky1's Thorne adaptation started broadcast in October 2010, with acclaimed actor David Morrissey starring as Tom Thorne. The first three episodes were an adaptation of Sleepyhead and were directed by Stephen Hopkins (24, Californication, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers). The final three episodes were an adaptation of Scaredy Cat, and guest starred Canadian actress Sandra Oh (of Grey's Anatomy).

Mark Billingham became the first crime writer to win the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award twice when his novel Death Message won in 2009. He won this prestigious award against strong opposition including Reginald Hill, Val McDermid, Ian Rankin and Lee Child.

Mark Billingham's novel "Lazybones" won the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award 2004 and he won the same award in 2009 for his novel "Death Message". In The Dark was nominated for the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards. In 2011, Billingham was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall Of Fame.

In 2002, he was "in the middle of writing a screenplay for an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and about to write a screenplay for a cult children's show," an original sci-fi drama for the BBC, but his prime consideration turned to writing novels.

Scaredy Cat (2002) won the Sherlock Award for "Best Detective Novel Created by a UK Author", and was also nominated for the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger for "Best Crime Novel of the Year". Lifeless (2005) was nominated for BCA "Crime Thriller of the Year" Award in 2006.

In 2001, Billingham's first crime novel, Sleepyhead, was published in the UK by Little, Brown and Company. He is a self-confessed fan of crime fiction, "as well as a really serious collector" and has alleged that the expense of collecting books inspired him to get into interviewing and reviewing books, partly for the complimentary copies. Starting with a local newspaper, he progressed to providing reviews and interviews for SHOTS, and then to magazines, including Time Out, where he found himself interviewing people such as Michael Connelly, talking and learning from other writers.

Billingham created Detective Inspector Tom Thorne for his 2001 debut novel Sleepyhead, where a case of "Locked-In syndrome" reveals the dark depths of a twisted mind, as adept at toying with the DI as with the victims. This central character has since featured in the vast majority of his works, except In the Dark, released in August 2008, Rush of Blood, released in August, 2012, and Die of Shame (May 2016) in which Thorne has only very minor roles. The author writes that, "if writers want their readers to care about a character, they have to care themselves" and, as such, has imbued Thorne with a lot of his personal characteristics. The two share a birthday, a locale (London) and musical interests (a "love of country music both alt and cheesy" – although Billingham implies that it is Thorne's fictional musical tastes that have grown on the author).

Sleepyhead was released in August 2001, and made it onto the Sunday Times "Top Ten Bestseller" list, becoming "the biggest selling debut novel of that Summer". In December 2009 it was listed as one of the 100 novels that shaped the decade and was chosen as one of the titles for World Book Night in 2011.

On the heels of 2001's Sleepyhead and 2002's Scaredy Cat, Thorne returned in 2003's Lazybones, investigating the killing of a convicted rapist, and finding it difficult to become involved in the case, since he has little real sympathy for the victim. A messy contract killer and the past cases of a former colleague blur together in The Burning Girl as the past meets the present in a symphony of violence. Thorne's involvement in a previous case affects his ability to investigate an increasing death toll among the homeless of London in Lifeless, while a kidnapping case forms the backbone of 2006's Buried. Death Message, the Thorne novel published in August 2007 sees him haunted by a psychopath he has already put behind bars, but who is reaching out from prison to manipulate the world outside. After resting Thorne for the standalone thriller In The Dark (although he does appear in a very minor role), Billingham returned to his perennial character in 2009 with Bloodline, in the 2010 novel From The Dead and in 2011 with "Good As Dead". After a break for a second standalone thriller, "Rush Of Blood", Thorne returned in 2013 in "The Dying Hours". Five more Thorne novels have since been published.

It is no surprise then that Billingham turned his hand to writing comedy scripts for television, as well as continuing to act and appear in front of the camera at various points. He joined with David Lloyd to write episodes and act in the children's TV series Harry's Mad (based on the book by Dick King-Smith), and wrote and presented two series of BBC's What's That Noise?. Between 1997 and 1998, he (and friend Peter Cocks) wrote and co-starred in Granada TV's Knight School, for which the two also produced a novelisation.

In 1997, Billingham became a crime victim, as he and his writing partner Peter Cocks were kidnapped and held hostage in a Manchester hotel room. Turning the event into inspiration for his second Thorne novel, Scaredy Cat, he wrote:

Billingham has received nominations and awards related to all aspects of his various careers. What's That Noise, (which he wrote and presented) won the 1995 Royal Television Society award for "Best Entertainment Programme", while Knight School was nominated for the RTS's "Best Children's Drama" award two years running.

Despite feeling rather ambivalent towards "serious" roles, Billingham still found considerable success by merging his careers as actor and comic to work in comedy shows. He was the human face on the puppet-representation-of-celebrities series Spitting Image, and "the taller half" of top double act the "Tracy Brothers" with Mike Mole from Bread & Circuses days (now guitarist with British comedy punk band Punks Not Dad), appearing regularly on the radio version of The Mary Whitehouse Experience. In 1988, he was seen in the children's comedy series News at Twelve, in which the central character "broadcasts his own (imaginary) TV news bulletin every evening".

Around 1987 he decided to pursue a career in comedy, in part because:

After graduating with a degree in drama, he stayed in Birmingham and helped form a socialist theatre company (Bread & Circuses). Bread & Circuses toured with a number of shows in schools, colleges, arts centres and the street. In the mid-1980s he moved from Birmingham to London as a "jobbing actor", taking minor roles in episodes of TV shows Dempsey and Makepeace, Juliet Bravo, Boon, and The Bill. After finding himself playing a variety of "bad guy roles such as a soccer hooligan, drug addict, a nasty copper, a racist copper or a bent copper", he became somewhat disenchanted with acting, perceiving that the emphasis was not on talent, but on looks.

Mark Philip David Billingham (born 2 July 1961) is an English novelist, actor, television screenwriter and comedian whose series of "Tom Thorne" crime novels are best-sellers in that genre.