Craig Cash is best known for writing and starring in The Royle Family alongside long-term collaborator Caroline Aherne. They met on a late Eighties Manchester radio station called KFM, where Cash had a show and Aherne, already on the comedy circuit as the nun nun Sister Mary Immaculate, provided characters.

He wrote for The Fast Show and for Aherne on The Mrs Merton Show as well as the Royal Family, in which he also played Dave Best. They also collaborated both on and off screen on the short-lived 1999 sitcom Mrs Merton and Malcolm, which attempted to build a sitcom around the chat-show hostess.

Away from Aherne, he wrote the pub-based Early Doors, which ran for two series in 2003 and 2004, and 2008’s Sunshine, starring Steve Coogan (and Aherne in a minor role). He also directed both series, as well as Sky One’s 2011 show The Cafe, written by Ralf Little and Michelle Terry.