Sarah Deane is a British screenwriter and script editor noted for her collaborations with producer Colin McKeown and BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning dramatist, Jimmy McGovern.
Career
After several years working as a quiz writer for pub quiz machines, quiz books and online quizzes, Deane went freelance in 2001 to concentrate on her writing career and, in 2005, she won the TenPlay Scriptwriting Award for her short play, "The Banner", about a father and son making a flag to take to the 2005 Champions League Final in Istanbul. The competition was judged by Brookside co-creator Colin McKeown and Jimmy McGovern, which resulted in Deane being given further opportunities to write on projects under McGovern's tutelage through McKeown's company LA Productions based at Liverpool Film Academy in Kirkdale, Liverpool. Deane's first television commission was Episode 3 'Drowning Not Waving' starring Richard Armitage and Christine Tremarco, for the first season of the anthology drama series Moving On which was broadcast on BBC1 in May 2009. A further episode in the second season, 'Rules of the Game', starring Alfie Allen, Richard Fleeshman, Tony Booth and Paula Wilcox, was broadcast in November 2010. The episode garnered an 87% positive response on the BBC statistical measure. After a further freelancing period of providing proofreading, copywriting, script-editing and ghostwriting services, as well as collaborating with LA Productions on numerous development projects, Deane joined LA Productions permanently in 2016 to assist then-Script Editor, Andrew Morrissey, on shows such as Broken and Moving On. After Morrissey's departure in 2017, Deane became Script Editor and continues to work across the company's development and production slate including ', written by Jimmy McGovern & Gillian Juckes and starring Sheridan Smith & Alison Steadman, written by Johanne McAndrew & Elliot Hope and starring Larry Lamb and Hayley Mills, and starring Liz White, Adam Thomas and Ian Puleston-Davies. In 2018, Channel 5's dedicated drama platform 5Star, commissioned LA Productions to make a 10-part female prison drama, ', which marked the channel's first ever original drama commission. Deane acted as Showrunner and Series Script Editor, writing Episodes 1, 6 and 10, and co-writing Episode 7 with Rebecca Manley. Transmission is due to begin on 5Star on Thursday 18 April 2019.
