HE was credited with breathing life back into Saturday night television when he revived Doctor Who almost four years ago.

And in doing so, he bought back the idea of a family audience.

No wonder, then, that Russell T Davies is now one of Swansea's best loved and most successful exports.

And he says it was always his plan for Doctor Who to return for all the family to enjoy.

He said: "It was important for me to make it so that everyone could watch it together — that's what the show is for. You could make a radical and cult-ish version for BBC3, but I wanted it to work on BBC1, prime-time on a Saturday night.

"Everyone said the family audience was dead, but I knew it wasn't. It had just changed shape.

"If the drama was big enough, loud enough and extravagant enough, they would come and watch it. My sisters would watch things like Pop Idol in big gangs."

When he was first approached to work on Doctor Who, Russell lived and worked in Manchester.

But after growing up in Swansea, it seems a move back to Wales wasn't a tough decision.

Former Olchfa pupil Russell said: "When they asked me, the BBC had a policy to make more stuff out of London and it just seemed automatic that we'd make it in Wales. They never asked me if I wanted to move halfway across the country, but there we go!

"I could have done a lot more work from home but I knew it would be so much hands-on work that I bought a place in Cardiff Bay.

"My family live in Swansea so I thought that, at my time of life, it would be good to be a bit closer to home.

"I go back to Swansea sometimes as well. My dad still lives there and my sister lives in Mumbles. I love going back there. I've got mates from school still there.

"My oldest friend Tracey, who I've known since I was 11, lives in Mumbles, so I go and stay with her. I love it there."

And while Doctor Who boosted Russell's already varied and successful career, it gave an even bigger boost to television in Wales.

The show regularly sweeps the board at the Bafta Cymru awards, this year scoring six gongs, including best drama series.

Russell said: "There's a lot of good stuff that gets made down here that doesn't get seen, like Belonging.

"There's always a lot of local output, especially Welsh language stuff which doesn't get seen — for good reason. But there's English language stuff as well and you have to promote it.

"BBC Wales has got Merlin now. I had a little bit to do with that, helping it on screen. It's brilliant.

"It means more work for everyone. Sky One is making a drama called Skellig with John Simm in Cardiff, and I don't think they would have come here if they didn't know about the facilities and locations here — they've followed our lead."

But Russell admits he didn't know what to expect when he first arrived back in Wales after two decades away.

He said: "When I came to Cardiff Bay, I hadn't lived in Swansea for around 20 years, so I knew nothing. I wondered what the crews and facilities were going to be like. But it turns out they're excellent.

"Welsh television doesn't get seen on big networks, so I think you have to promote it. You get so much Irish stuff on television and lots of Scottish stuff. But you get comparatively fewer Welsh items.

"We are a smaller country, but I think our work should be seen.

"It's not just me that works to get Wales noticed, though. I just tend to be the public voice of all those people working very hard."

But it's not just Doctor Who that is helping to put Wales on the map in the television world. Spin-off shows Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures are also filmed here.

Russell said: "At the BBC, we're at our absolute limit at the moment with all the different shows.

"I'm watching the Torchwood rushes (raw, unedited footage) now and the next series is a five-hour story shown in one week.

"There are so many Welsh characters in it, so many Welsh actors in it.

"In this story we meet his family, so we've got a Welsh actress playing his sister, there's a Welsh actor playing her husband, there's Welsh kids playing their kids.

"I was just sitting there watching it thinking that it was going to be on prime-time BBC1 and it's all Welsh. It's really exciting."

And Russell thinks having shows filmed in Wales is good for today's youth. Doctor Who is filmed at sites across the region, including Swansea. And scenes from Torchwood were filmed at the Brangwyn Hall in September.

Russell said: "I think having things like that happen is best when you're young. Because if you're 14 years old and you're sitting there in Swansea thinking 'what can I do in life? What can I do as a career?' then it will inspire you.

"And if you want to act or you want to write or you want to direct or do something creative like that, it will spur you on. I used to sit there and think 'I've got to move to London'.

"I never did, but I moved to Manchester instead. It's the same principle though, especially if you can't speak Welsh — you think you've got to move to another city.

"But now I think if you're aged 14 and watching Doctor Who, Merlin or Torchwood, you can think 'that's just down the motorway — that's half an hour away'. It's easy to be part of it. That's really exciting."

None of the hit sci-fi programmes that have made Russell famous were filmed nearby when he grew up in Sketty, Swansea.

And this is perhaps why his childhood is one of the few topics that doesn't get him excited.

He said: "It was fine growing up in Swansea. I have a lovely family. We are a very close-knit, secure family. So I had no problems at home or anything.

"I went to Olchfa, which was a huge comprehensive with around 2,500 pupils. It was enormous, I think that's way too big for a school. It was one of those schools where you keep your head down. Fortunately I was good at school work so I didn't struggle. I just kept quiet really.

"When I was starting out, wanting to be a writer in Swansea, I didn't know a single writer in the world. I thought they were people born on Mount Olympus — god-like creatures with strange muse-like power. It was like they didn't exist in the real world. When you meet them, they're completely ordinary people.

"Then you discover they're not quite completely ordinary — all of them are mad. But we all live in the real world. We all have a mortgage to pay and coffee to drink and family to deal with."

Russell later joined a youth theatre, based at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff, and it was there he began to develop his love of writing.

"I also joined the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre and it was the best time I had as a youngster. It was there I made my real friends. That was where I feel I grew up. It was a great creative place and they disciplined me.

"You had to be on time for everything and you had to learn your lines. It wasn't just a laugh, it wasn't like a youth club. There were great staff.

"My favourite thing about growing up was youth theatre. Michael Sheen was a member of it. Lots of actors went there — it was a good place. That was where my head was. School was kind of irrelevant compared to the youth theatre."

Countless successful shows and numerous awards later and Russell has put pen to paper again, but this time for a book about screenwriting.

Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale is email correspondence between Russell and journalist Benjamin Cook.

Russell said: "Ben started out asking me about writing just for a magazine article. But in the end we wrote so much between us that it became a 512-page book. I wanted to write about writing to show what it's like.

"You often read theory about writing. There are a lot of writers' books that talk about structure and character — but that's not what it's like. That's boring. When you sit there, it's fascinating, with all sorts of things happening. I tried to capture that.

"I sent Ben an email every night describing what I was writing and why I was writing it and how it felt. Even when I was in a stinking mood. It's the kind of book I wish I could have read when I was starting out."

Russell says the book will show budding writers what the job is actually like by detailing his daily account of work on Doctor Who.

"It shows that writing for TV is really ordinary," he said. "It's day after day working away, working hard. That's the key to it — working hard, well and honestly.

"The book is about taking the mystique out of it. It's not like ethereal ideas descend from heaven into my head. I just sit there and I work and type. Just plug away and it works.

"The nice thing is it's all done as a diary during a year of writing Doctor Who, so you get the casting of Kylie and Catherine Tate. There's bits of glitz and glamour in there."

The sci-fi smash has a Christmas special this year, followed by four specials next year. But by 2010 Russell intends to bow out of the show, handing over his role to Stephen Moffat.

But Russell isn't sure what he'll do next. He said: "I haven't got any plans of what I'll do after Doctor Who, I haven't really thought about it. I'm not going just yet!"

Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale is out now, by BBC Books.