David McDermott’s writing career is characterised by putting words into the mouths of the powerful, both real and imagined. From the 10 Downing Street writers’ room where he collaborated on speeches for UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and his cabinet secretaries for Health and International Development, to the fictionalised version of the late Queen Elizabeth II as a Staff Writer on Netflix’s The Crown. With over 72 hours of TV drama credits in the UK, he has worked closely with international award-winning showrunners and E.P.-Creators, such as The Crown’s Peter Morgan, House of Cards’ Michael Dobbs, and Deutschland 83’s Ulrike Leibfried for UFA Fiction in Berlin. He trained at London’s Royal Court Theatre Young Writers Programme during the artistic directorship of Stephen Daldry, and with Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney as part of the Sean O’Casey Scholarship in Derry, Northern Ireland, at the start of the peace process. David holds BA and MA degrees in Literature and Theatre from the Universities of Leeds and Sussex. He is a Senior Lecturer in Screenwriting at Liverpool John Moores University, and has worked as a visiting lecture in scriptwriting at Downing College Cambridge, and Wolfson College Oxford.
Degrees
University of Sussex, United Kingdom, MA, English Literature: Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change
University of Leeds, United Kingdom, BA (Hons), English Literature and Theatre Studies
Academic appointments
External Examiner, University of Chichester, 2023 - present
Senior Lecturer - Screenwriting, Liverpool John Moores University, 2021 - present
Lecturer - Screenwriting, Liverpool John Moores University, 2019 - present
Visiting Lecturer, Wolfson College, University of Oxford, 2017 - 2016
Visiting Lecturer, Downing College, University of Cambridge, 2015 - 2015
