Chris Lang

Actor · Writer

Lambeth, London, England

November 1, 1961

Biography

Chris Lang is a British screenwriter, producer, and actor. Lang has written many British television series but is best known as the writer, creator, and executive producer of Unforgotten. Chris Lang was educated at Reigate Grammar School and then at RADA, where he won the Royal Academy award for "A Series of Outstanding Performances in the Vanbrugh Theatre". He graduated in 1983 In his youth, Lang formed a comedy revue called The Jockeys of Norfolk with Andy Taylor and Hugh Grant. He worked as an actor on such British television series as Shadow of the Noose, Drop the Dead Donkey, Outside Edge, A Dance to the Music of Time, and All Along the Watchtower. He stopped acting in the mid nineties in order to fully concentrate on his writing career Lang began his screenwriting career on The Bill, for which he wrote many episodes, and for which he won a Writer's Guild award. He went on to write episodes for shows including Casualty, Soldier Soldier, The Knock, POW, Primeval, Hustle, and The Tunnel for Sky Atlantic In 2001, he wrote and created his first original drama series The Glass, which starred John Thaw and Sarah Lancashire. Other original work has included Sirens, Unconditional Love, Amnesia (which was nominated for an Edgar Award), Lawless, and The Reckoning The first series of Unforgotten, starring Nicola Walker, Trevor Eve, Sir Tom Courtenay, and Sanjeev Bhaskar, was broadcast in autumn 2015. Courtenay later won the 2016 BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor for his role. The second series aired in January 2017 to an audience of 7.29 million, with the Daily Telegraph describing the series as "the detective drama of the decade". In November 2017 Mark Bonnar won the 2017 Best Actor BAFTA Scotland for his portrayal of Colin Osborne in the series. The third series aired in July 2018 and received universal critical acclaim. The last episode was watched by over 7.5 million viewers, making it the most watched episode of all three series.