MMCGEE
Elizabeth

• 1. Career

Elizabeth "Lisa" McGee is an Irish playwright and screenwriter. McGee is the creator and writer of Derry Girls, a hit comedy series that began airing on Channel 4 in the UK in January 2018.

In 2018, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022.

Career

While studying at Queen's, she wrote Jump, a dark comedy play set in Derry, which was later adapted into a film. She gained an attachment to the Royal National Theatre in London in 2006. In addition to Jump, McGee's other plays include The Heights, Nineteen Ninety Two, and Girls and Dolls. For Girls and Dolls she won the Stewart Parker Trust New Playwright Bursary 2007.

McGee created and wrote the Irish television series Raw (2008-2013) for RTÉ. This was followed by a sitcom London Irish (2013), for Channel 4.

She also wrote for The Things I Haven't Told You for BBC Three and the BAFTA-nominated Being Human for the BBC. Further writing credits include episodes for Golden Globe-nominated drama series The White Queen for BBC 1, Indian Summers for Channel 4, and The Deceived for Channel 5 co-written with her husband Tobias Beer.

McGee is best known as the creator and writer of Derry Girls (2018–2022), a comedy series about five teenagers growing up in the 1990s during The Troubles. The series was critically acclaimed.

In Summer 2023, Channel 4 green lit McGee's How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, which began filming in 2024. The series was then released on Netflix in February 2026.