Background

Nicholls is the middle of three siblings. He attended Barton Peveril sixth-form college

Barton Peveril College

Barton Peveril Sixth Form College is the seventh largest sixth form college in the UK, located in Eastleigh, Hampshire, UK with approximately 2600 students. It is part of the Wessex Group of Sixth Form Colleges.-Admissions:...

 at Eastleigh

Eastleigh

Eastleigh is a railway town in Hampshire, England, and the main town in the Eastleigh borough which is part of Southampton Urban Area. The town lies between Southampton and Winchester, and is part of the South Hampshire conurbation...

, Hampshire, from 1983 to 1985 (taking A-levels in Drama and Theatre Studies along with English, Physics and Biology), and playing a wide range of roles in college drama productions. He attended Barton Peveril College

Barton Peveril College

Barton Peveril Sixth Form College is the seventh largest sixth form college in the UK, located in Eastleigh, Hampshire, UK with approximately 2600 students. It is part of the Wessex Group of Sixth Form Colleges.-Admissions:...

, as did Colin Firth

Colin Firth

SirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...

, with whom he would later collaborate in When Did You Last See Your Father?. He then attended Bristol University in the 1980s (graduating with a BA in Drama and English in 1988) before training as an actor at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York.

Throughout his 20s, he worked as a professional actor using the stage name David Holdaway. He played small roles at various theatres, including the West Yorkshire Playhouse

West Yorkshire Playhouse

The West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, England is a theatre which opened in March 1990 as part of the regeneration of the Quarry Hill area of the city...

 and, for a three year period, at the Royal National Theatre

Royal National Theatre

The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

.

Novels

His novels include Starter for Ten

Starter for Ten (novel)

Starter for Ten by David Nicholls is a novel first published in 2003 about the character Brian Jackson and his first year of university , his attempts to get on the Granada Television quiz show University Challenge, and his tentative attempts at romance with Alice Harbinson, another member of the...

(2003), The Understudy (2005), and One Day

One Day (novel)

One Day is a novel by David Nicholls, published in 2009. Each chapter covers the lives of two protagonists on 15 July, St. Swithin's Day, for twenty years. The novel attracted generally positive reviews, and was named 2010 Galaxy Book of the Year...

(2009).

Screenwriting

As a screenwriter, he co-wrote the adapted screenplay of Simpatico

Simpatico (play)

Simpatico is a 1993 play by American playwright Sam Shepard.In 1999, it was adapted for the screen in the film Simpatico starring Nick Nolte, Jeff Bridges, Sharon Stone, Catherine Keener, and Albert Finney.-Plot:...

and contributed four scripts to the third series

Cold Feet (series 3)

The third series of the British comedy drama television series Cold Feet was first broadcast on the ITV network from 12 November to 26 December 2000. The eight episodes were written by Mike Bullen and David Nicholls, produced by Christine Langan and Spencer Campbell, and directed by Simon Delaney,...

 of Cold Feet

Cold Feet

Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the...

(both 2000). For the latter, he was nominated for a British Academy Television Craft Award

British Academy Television Awards

The British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1954, and are analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States.-Background:...

 for Best New Writer (Fiction). He created the Granada Television

Granada Television

Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....

 pilot and miniseries I Saw You (2000, 2002) and the Tiger Aspect six-part series Rescue Me (2002). Rescue Me lasted for only one series before being cancelled. Nicholls had written four episodes for the second series before being told of the cancellation. His anger over this led to him taking a break from screenwriting to concentrate on writing Starter for Ten. When he returned to screenwriting, he adapted Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....

into a one-hour segment of the BBC's 2005 ShakespeaRe-Told

ShakespeaRe-Told

ShakespeaRe-Told is the umbrella title for a series of four television adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays broadcast on BBC One during November 2005. In a similar manner to the 2003 production of The Canterbury Tales, each play is adapted by a different writer, and relocated to the present day...

season. His latest novel, One Day, was made into a film starring Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway (actress)

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway is an American actress. After several stage roles, she appeared in the 1999 television series Get Real. She played Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries...

 and Jim Sturgess

Jim Sturgess

James Anthony "Jim" Sturgess is an English actor and singer-songwriter. His breakthrough role was appearing as Jude in the musical romance drama film Across the Universe .-Early life:...

.

In 2006, his film adaptation Starter for 10 was released in cinemas. The following year, he wrote And When Did You Last See Your Father?

And When Did You Last See Your Father?

And When Did You Last See Your Father? is a 2007 British drama film directed by Anand Tucker. The screenplay by David Nicholls is based on the 1993 memoir of the same title by Blake Morrison.-Plot:...

, an adaptation of the memoir by Blake Morrison. His adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, also known as Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman, Tess of the d'Urbervilles or just Tess, is a novel by Thomas Hardy, first published in 1891. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British...

for the BBC aired in 2008, and is he now working on an adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd

Far from the Madding Crowd

Far from the Madding Crowd is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership. Critical notices were plentiful and mostly positive...

for BBC Films

BBC Films

BBC Films is the feature film-making arm of the BBC. It has produced or co-produced some of the most successful British films of recent years, including An Education, StreetDance 3D, Fish Tank, Stage Beauty, A Cock and Bull Story, Nativity! and Match Point.It aims to make strong British films with...

. He has also adapted Great Expectations

Great Expectations

Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published in serial form in the publication All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It has been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times....

; the screenplay has been listed on the 2009 Brit List, an annual industry poll of the best unmade scripts outside the United States.

Theatre

In 2005 he wrote Aftersun for the Old Vic

Old Vic

The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...

's 24-Hour Play festival. The 10-minute play starred James Nesbitt

James Nesbitt

James Nesbitt is a Northern Irish actor. Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Nesbitt grew up in the nearby village of Broughshane, before moving to Coleraine, County Londonderry. He wanted to become a teacher like his father, so he began a degree in French at the University of Ulster...

, Saffron Burrows

Saffron Burrows

Saffron Dominique Burrows is an English actress and former fashion model, who starred as Det. Serena Stevens on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Lorraine Weller on Boston Legal.-Early life:...

, Catherine Tate

Catherine Tate

Catherine Tate is an English actress, writer, and comedian. She has won numerous awards for her work on the sketch comedy series The Catherine Tate Show as well as being nominated for an International Emmy Award and four BAFTA Awards...

 and Gael García Bernal

Gael García Bernal

Gael García Bernal is a Mexican film actor and director.-Early life:García Bernal was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, the son of Patricia Bernal, an actress and former model, and José Ángel García, an actor and director. His stepfather is Sergio Yazbek, whom his mother married when García Bernal was...

. Nicholls developed Aftersun into a one-off comedy for BBC One. It starred Peter Capaldi

Peter Capaldi

Peter Dougan Capaldi is an Academy Award and BAFTA award winning Scottish actor and film director. In 1995, his short film Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film...

 and Sarah Parish

Sarah Parish

Sarah Parish is an English actress.Parish is known for her work on such TV series as: Peak Practice, Hearts and Bones, Cutting It, Doctor Who, Mistresses, Merlin and the new ITV medical drama Monroe....

 and was broadcast in 2006.

Further reading

• Nicholls, David (19 March 2005). "The invisible man". The Guardian.
• Nicholls, David (31 October 2006). "I was a bit of a prat". The Guardian.

External links

• Official website
• David Nicholls at Curtis Brown Literary and Talent Agency
• 'An Interview with David Nicholls' in the Oxonian Review