C4 comedy-drama winds down after 11 series

Channel 4's comedy-drama Shameless is to end next year, after 11 series.

Creator Paul Abbott said he wanted to bring the show to an end on the 10th anniversary of its first airing.

He said: ‘Its 10th anniversary seems a fitting time to shut the book on Shameless. We've had an absolute ball making this stuff up for a living. We've given back in spades and got away with absolute murder, on behalf of such a fantastically outspoken audience.

‘But this is also the year my dad died and he was, in abstract, my core inspiration for starting the whole Shameless party rolling, I wanted to make invisible people vivid. Closing the two eras in the same year feels very right. Now I'm off to build the next whatever it is.’

The final series of 14 episodes is currently being Rilmed in Manchester, which will bring the total to 139. they will air from early next year. Only David Threlfall (Frank Gallagher) and Rebecca Atkinson (Karen Maguire) remain of the original cast.

Jay Hunt, Channel 4’s chief creative officer, said: ‘We are in Paul Abbott's debt for bringing his defiantly dysfunctional band of characters to Channel 4 and I'm delighted to say we have other drama projects with Paul in the pipeline.’

The show won the best TV Comedy Drama at the British Comedy Awards in 2005 and the best drama Bafta the same year.

Published: 9 Oct 2012