Phil Mealey is an actor and writer, known for The Royle Family (2006-2012), Early Doors (2003-2004) and Sunshine (2008).
“To the regiment – I wish I was there”
Whilst holding down a proper job in engineering in the early 1990s Phil appeared regularly on South Manchester radio station KFM alongside Caroline Aherne, Craig Cash, Terry Christian and Jon Ronson.
In the mid-1990s he appeared with Craig on Radio 1‘s Mark Radcliffe show ‘Mark and Lard’ – writing and performing a series of comedy sketches entitled ‘Dick and Ken The Snooker Men‘ In 1998 Phil wrote and performed a series of comedy sketches for the Sony award-winning ‘Pete and Geoff show’ on Key 103.
In 2000 Phil teamed up with Craig to write and appear in the award-winning and critically acclaimed ‘Early Doors’, which ran for two series from 2003 to 2005. This was aired on both BBC1 and BBC2. Phil combined with Caroline Aherne and Craig to write and appear in the BAFTA award-winning episode of The Royle Family ‘The Queen of Sheba’ in 2006.
Phil and Craig wrote and appeared in their comedy-drama entitled ‘Sunshine’, in 2008 starring Steve Coogan and Bernard Hill. It gained the unprecedented Al figure for a comedy-drama on BBC1 and also became the only UK television series in any genre that year to increase its audience ratings consecutively until its conclusion.
In 2008 Phil combined again with Caroline and Craig to write The Royle Family BBC1 Christmas special ‘The New Sofa’, which achieved the highest rated audience figures for any sitcom for that year. Phil, Caroline and Craig wrote the 2009 Christmas episode of The Royle Family, ‘The Golden Egg Cup’, the 2010 The Royle Family Christmas episode entitled ‘Joe’s Crackers’, and the 2012 The Royle Family Christmas episode ‘Barbara’s Gold Ring‘.
Phil was also the Executive Producer on the Sky1 series The Cafe in 2013.
In 2014 Phil and Craig wrote Broken Biscuits, a pilot aired by BBC1 in March 2016 as part of its Comedy Playhouse season. Starring Alun Armstrong and Alison Steadman, who went on to win the RTS award for best performance in a comedy in November 2016. Also in 2016, Phil teamed up with Daniel Peak to write the sitcom Just Grand. For BBC Radio 2 starring Phil, Jason Watkins, Siobhan Finneran and Denise Welch. In 2017 Phil was invited to guest present on BBC Radio Manchester with Eamonn O’Neill and Jimmy Wagg which led, to a series of successful shows with Natalie Eve Williams.
Also in 2017 Phil and Craig began writing Early Doors Live, which ran from 2018-19. It began at the 500-seater Quay Theatre in The Lowry in Salford and went on to play Theatres and Arenas around the country to over 100,000 fans in total, concluding at the Manchester Arena and Winning the Manchester Evening News Best Theatre production of 2019. They have recently written a play Can’t Do Right For Doing Wrong which is currently in Production.
In August 2022 Phil premiered his new project Making A Murderer: The Musical at Edinburgh Fringe Festival and received attention from Rolling Stone Magazine, The List, The Times, WhatsOnStage and The Sunday Post. The show’s writing, acting and production received critical appraise including 4 and 5-star reviews.
Phil teamed up with Northern Rail in October 2022 to send a message to ‘fare dodgers’ on National Poetry Day by penning a poem to help deter people from travelling without a ticket.
Phil Mealey 