WITH Shameless up for two BAFTA awards this week, any normal scriptwriter would be resting on his laurels, taking stock of the mayhem he has created with the infamous Frank Gallagher.

But Paul Abbott is no ordinary scriptwriter. When The Diary caught up with him last week he was buzzing with talk of his next big writing projects.

"I'm just writing the Shameless Christmas special which is always good fun," he tells me.

"When I sit there writing it, my wife is always indignant when I start laughing at my own jokes, but really I'm laughing at the fact I can get away with them.

"And I love writing for Frank because he's just epic and pointless and irrational and audiences love his recklessness and his fecklessness and they love him being totally lovable."

But after scripting three series, there must be life after the Chatsworth Estate. "I'm just planning a piece on Belfast but, I'm not going to write it politic- ally because it's got to be anti-political to tell such a huge story," he adds.

"You find two people arguing about something for such a long time you make it sound like the troubles but it's just couples arguing about the kettle and the lead. You reduce it until it's funny.

"I can't get writing it yet, but every day I'm dying to get to a pen, it's biting me now."

Beyond that, the future for Paul is open, but the creative juices are always flowing. "The really important thing for writers is to bounce around in different genres," he says.

"If you're a good writer, you can write a good sitcom. I haven't yet, but I might like to say I can or I did, whether it screwed up or not. I like putting things on telly that haven't been seen before, be it a person or a style, that's my motivating factor." Tweet