David Nicholls, writer

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 August 2024

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The writer David Nicholls is best known for his 2009 novel One Day which has sold 6 million copies, been made into a film and a Netflix series which reached the top 10 in 89 countries. He’s written six novels and his work as a screenwriter has won him a BAFTA and an Emmy nomination.

He was born in 1966 and studied Drama and English Literature at Bristol University. This partly inspired his novel Starter for Ten. After university he spent one year in New York studying acting before returning to the UK to try and forge a career as an actor. He spent three years at the National Theatre but was mostly an understudy which inspired his novel Understudy.

After a few years, David left acting and pursued a writing career and had success as a TV screen writer. Alongside his award-winning career as a TV writer he has won many prizes for his novels.

David lives in London with his partner, Hannah and their two children.

Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah Taylor

DISC ONE: I Say a Little Prayer - Aretha Franklin DISC TWO: Cloudbusting - Kate Bush DISC THREE: Life on Mars? - David Bowie DISC FOUR: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988: Aria. Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach and performed by Glenn Gould (piano) Coyote - Joni Mitchell DISC FIVE: Coyote - Joni Mitchell DISC SIX: We Belong Together - Rickie Lee Jones DISC SEVEN: Who Knows Where The Time Goes? - Fairport Convention DISC EIGHT: Protection - Massive Attack featuring Tracey Thorn BOOK CHOICE: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy LUXURY ITEM: A piano and sheet music CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: I Say a Little Prayer - Aretha Franklin

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Disks podcast.
0:08.6	Every week I ask my guest to choose the 8 tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they
0:14.3	were cast away to a desert island. And for rights reasons the music is shorter than
0:19.7	the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening. My castaway this week is the writer David Nichols. He's a Bafterwinning screenwriter and the author of six novels including the international bestseller One Day,
0:53.0	which recently won a new generation of fans
0:55.0	with a Netflix adaptation which went to the top 10 in 89 countries.
1:01.0	He began his creative career as an actor spending three years at the
1:04.8	National Theatre Company. He didn't get many lines, but he did get a book out of it,
1:08.7	his comic novel The Understudy. His stories are often bittersweet, as much about loss as love.
1:15.6	Writing one day, he said he wanted to capture the atmosphere of a great pop song, joyous
1:20.6	and sad, constantly shifting between major and minor keys.
1:24.5	He succeeded, bringing the everyday experience of falling for someone
1:28.6	epically to life.
1:30.0	He says,
1:31.0	I've always thought that it's often the biggest thing that happens to you,
1:34.4	meeting someone and falling in love. It's the thing that shapes your life.
1:39.0	David Nichols, welcome to Desert Island discs.
1:41.3	I'm very excited to be here. Thank you.
1:43.2	I'm absolutely thrilled to have you. So David as we've heard your novels
1:46.9	covers so much emotional ground and as readers we are of course always rooting for
1:51.3	your characters and we want the best for them but I'm not sure
	...

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