Isy Suttie joins Shameless for final series

Shameless, Channel 4 most successful ever comedy-drama, will end early next year after eleven series.

Show creator Paul Abbott says: "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 show started in 2003, following the happy-go-lucky Gallagher family, before broadening out over the years to other characters on the Chatsworth estate. The last 14 episodes will mark a full decade of the show, totalling 139 episodes.

Over the years Shameless has been key to the careers of many British screen stars including James McAvoy, Anne-Marie Duff and Maxine Peake.

Isy Suttie will be in the final series, while Jody Latham will be returning to the show halfway through the season. 

Channel 4 chief creative officer Jay Hunt says: "Shameless: ground-breaking when it launched and gob-smacking ever since, has over the years built a loyal following. 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. It's not over yet and I wait to see how Paul, David Threlfall and the talented team at Company Pictures create a fitting farewell to Frank and co on screen early next year."