Peter Nichols was an actor and teacher before becoming a produced playwright in 1959. His work for the theatre includes A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, The National Health, Privates on Parade, Passion Play and the musical Poppy. These won four Evening Standard Awards, Oliviers and a Tony.
He wrote the screenplays when three of these became feature films.
His memoir Feeling You're Behind came out in 1984, a book of extracts from his diary in 2000. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His papers are in The British Library.
Born and brought up in Bristol, he now lives in Oxford.
Love Fifteen is the first of five novels