Peter Nichols

Peter Richard Nichols (31 July 1927 – 7 September 2019) was an English playwright, screenwriter, director and journalist.

Life and career Born in Bristol, he was educated at Bristol Grammar School, and served his compulsory National Service as a clerk in Calcutta and later in the British Army's Combined Services Entertainment Unit in Singapore where he entertained the troops alongside John Schlesinger, Stanley Baxter, Peter Vaughan and Kenneth Williams, before going on to study acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He later claimed to have studied acting because there were no dedicated courses for playwrights.

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg is a one-set drama in music hall style. The National Health is a fantasy farce, also interrupted by vaudeville. Privates on Parade is a musical comedy, partly inspired by Nichols's own experiences in the Combined Services Entertainments Unit.

He died on 7 September 2019 in Oxford, survived by his wife Thelma and three children.

Plays His plays include: Promenade, an original play for television (Granada Television, 1959) Ben Spray, an original play for television (Granada Television, 1960) The Hooded Terror (Rehearsed Reading) (Little Theatre, Bristol, 1964) A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, 1967) The Gorge, a play in The Wednesday Play series (BBC, 1968) The National Health (National Theatre Company at the Old Vic, 1969) Forget-me-not Lane (Greenwich Theatre, 1971) Chez Nous (Globe Theatre, 1974) Harding's Luck (Greenwich Theatre, 1974) The Freeway (National Theatre Company at The Old Vic, 1976) Privates on Parade (Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre, 1977) Born in the Gardens (Bristol Old Vic, 1970; Globe Theatre, London, 1980) Passion Play (Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre 1981; Adelphi, London, 1982) Poppy (Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican Theatre, 1982) A Piece of My Mind (Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, 1987; Apollo London, London, 1987) Blue Murder (Show of Strength Theatre Company, Bristol, 1995) So Long Life (Show of Strength Theatre Company, Bristol, 2000) Nicholodeon (Show of Strength Theatre Company, Bristol, 2000) Lingua Franca (Finborough Theatre, London, 2010)

Books Feeling You're Behind, an autobiography by Peter Nichols (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984) 'Whatever interest my life may have had must have been exhausted. Yet there were better reasons than vanity – I needed the advance the publishers offered, which was far more generous than any given to me for a play; the theatre itself, once so alluring, now seemed past its best, the wrinkles showing, the kisses dry and dutiful; it would be a bitter pleasure to describe my disenchantment and blame the people who'd done me down; and if I didn't write a book about me, it was clear no one else would." Peter Nichols's preface, page xi.

Peter Nichols: Diaries 1969–1977 by Peter Nichols (Nick Hern Books, 2000) "Did you know that Maggie Smith once accused Laurence Olivier of having "a tin ear and two left feet"? That's one of many enjoyably acerbic snippets in Peter Nichols' Diaries 1969–77, a period that stretches from the composition of his The National Health to the conception of his masterpiece, Passion Play....Nichols tends to be touchy, crusty, disappointed with himself....yet wonderfully observant, honest and likeable." Benedict Nightingale, The Times 13 December 2000.