Do we like Morwenna Banks?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decades of decent work with nothing harmful on the record, but little public comment on the big issues keeps it short of a top score.
Morwenna Banks is a Cornish-rooted writer, actor and voice artist who has been working in British comedy and drama for decades. She co-created the Channel 4 social-work sitcom Damned with her long-time friend Jo Brand, and she wrote the film Miss You Already, adapted from her own radio drama Goodbye. Most people know her voice without knowing her face: she is Mummy Pig in Peppa Pig.
Here's the thing about the scandal section: there isn't one. Searches for court cases, lawsuits and allegations against her turned up only other people called Banks, and no reputable outlet we found reports anything of the kind about her. That's honestly the whole list.
On the harm check, nothing of hers worries us. In a 2016 interview about Damned she said the writers wanted to take the judgement out on both sides of the social work system, which is a decent instinct. Of Peppa Pig she said it avoids preaching. The company she keeps looks fine too: Jo Brand, and Apple TV's Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson thriller. The gap is that we found no public comment from her on trans rights or the climate, so this is a pass on a quiet record.
Nothing new on her lately in the news, and no recent stoush. The latest big project we could confirm is Down Cemetery Road for Apple TV, adapted from a Mick Herron novel, where Apple named her lead writer and executive producer in April 2024. She also wrote for Slow Horses, the same author's spy series.
The good stuff is low-key but real. In 2023 Falmouth University gave her an honorary fellowship, presented by Dawn French, and she used her speech to tell comedy-writing graduates to keep going because they were the genuine article. She also supports Drama Express, a Cornish theatre group for young people with disabilities.
Her speech also had a sensible line for the AI age: stay one step ahead, because our livelihoods depend on being human. That's a working writer sticking up for working writers, which is the sort of thing we like to see.