Peter Nichols – författare

In 1968, nine sailors set off on the most daring race ever held: to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe nonstop. It was a feat that had never been accomplished and one that would forever change the face of sailing. Ten months later, only one of the nine men would cross the finish line and earn fame, wealth, and glory. For the others, the reward was madness, failure, and death.

In this extraordinary book, Peter Nichols chronicles a contest of the individual against the sea, waged at a time before cell phones, satellite dishes, and electronic positioning systems. A Voyage for Madmen is a tale of sailors driven by their own dreams and demons, of horrific storms in the Southern Ocean, and of those riveting moments when a split-second decision means the difference between life and death.

Among Nichols'' most important plays are A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, The National Health and Forget-me-Not Lane.Writers-Files is an important series documenting the work of major dramatists of the last hundred years. Each volume contains a comprehensive checklist of all the writer''s plays, with a detailed performance history, excerpted reviews and a selection of the writers'' own comments on their work.

"Methuen are to be congratulated on launching this series...extremely useful to theatre professionals as well as to students and teachers of drama" (David Bradby, Speech and Drama)

Among Nichols'' most important plays are A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, The National Health and Forget-me-Not Lane.Writers-Files is an important series documenting the work of major dramatists of the last hundred years. Each volume contains a comprehensive checklist of all the writer''s plays, with a detailed performance history, excerpted reviews and a selection of the writers'' own comments on their work.

"Methuen are to be congratulated on launching this series...extremely useful to theatre professionals as well as to students and teachers of drama" (David Bradby, Speech and Drama)

"The portrait of a marriage and his strained relationship with his teenage children all seem to come straight from the heart. They are all the more affecting for being described in the context of such immaculate artifice" (Charles Spencer, London Daily News)

This volume continues the stage plays of Peter Nichols, newly revised and introduced by the author. Chez Nous is about English couples who bring their emotional baggage with them on a holiday to France; Privates on Parade is a hit play inspired by the author''s experience in Singapore after the war working for the Combined Services Entertainments where he met among others John Schlesinger and Kenneth Williams at a time when ''mixed'' entertainment relied on men dressing up as women; Born in the Gardens is inspired by the author''s native city Bristol while Passion Play is a play about passion among the elderly - won Best Play (Evening Standard) in 1981. Poppy (the musical that opened the RSC''s residence at the Barbican) is set in the Victorian Far East. It takes a pop at imperial hypocrisy and wickedness and won the Best Musical award.

"The portrait of a marriage and his strained relationship with his teenage children all seem to come straight from the heart. They are all the more affecting for being described in the context of such immaculate artifice" (Charles Spencer, London Daily News)

This volume continues the stage plays of Peter Nichols, newly revised and introduced by the author. Chez Nous is about English couples who bring their emotional baggage with them on a holiday to France; Privates on Parade is a hit play inspired by the author''s experience in Singapore after the war working for the Combined Services Entertainments where he met among others John Schlesinger and Kenneth Williams at a time when ''mixed'' entertainment relied on men dressing up as women; Born in the Gardens is inspired by the author''s native city Bristol while Passion Play is a play about passion among the elderly - won Best Play (Evening Standard) in 1981. Poppy (the musical that opened the RSC''s residence at the Barbican) is set in the Victorian Far East. It takes a pop at imperial hypocrisy and wickedness and won the Best Musical award.

Blue Murder opens with Foreign Bodies, where Swinging London meets bourgeois Shrewsbury and the drinks are laced with cyanide. As the son of the household struggles to write his first play, a murder story is offered to him on a plate. The second half, A Game of Soldiers, is a Whitehall farce taking place in St James''s Palace. The same dramatist has brought his complete play to be censored but The Lord Chamberlain''s Men have a few shameful secrets of their own to hide, including a priapic guardsman.