BBC7

Frank Cottrell Boyce's favourite teacher at school was his English teacher Mr Biggs. Mr Biggs performed a Punch and Judy show in his spare time and he persuaded Frank to be his assistant. So, throughout his six form years, Frank spent his weekends working at children's parties and parish fetes as a puppeteer. Frank had his own assistant during this time - a dog that would pass the hat around!

When Frank left university, he had a radio play published which lead to a job at Thames Television in the Education Department. What he really wanted to do though, was write screenplays and during the years he struggled to write one that would be accepted by the film industry, he supported himself by writing for Coronation Street.

Eventually Frank wrote the screenplay for a film that was to become very successful - Welcome to Sarajevo . From then on, he wrote lots more screenplays including Millions [which was the idea for a film before it became a book].

Frank lives in Liverpool with his family.