Peter Nichols was born in Bristol in 1927 and educated there at the Grammar School and Old Vic Theatre School. After National Service in India, Malaya and Hong Kong, he was an actor in repertory and television for five years, then a teacher in London schools. He has written some twenty original plays and adaptations for television, six feature films and the following stage plays: A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, The National Health, Forget-Me-Not Lane, The Freeway, Chez Nous, Privates on Parade, Born in the Gardens, Passion Play, Poppy, and A Piece of My Mind. These have won four Evening Standard Awards, a Society of West End Theatres Award for Best Comedy and two Best Musical Awards. He was resident playwright at the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, where he co-directed The National Health. He has also directed revivals of Joe Egg and Forget-Me-Not Lane at Greenwich and the first production of Born in the Gardens at Bristol. The 1985 Broadway revival of Joe Egg won two Tonys. Feeling You're Behind, a book of memoirs, came out in 1984.
