David Nicholls, writer
49:46 Share

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening. MUSIC PLAYS

My cast away this week is the writer David Nicholls. He's a BAFTA-winning screenwriter and the author of six novels, including the international bestseller One Day, which recently won a new generation of fans with a Netflix adaptation which went to the top ten in 89 countries. He began his creative career as an actor, spending three years at the National Theatre Company. He didn't get many lines, but he did get a book out of it, his comic novel The Understudy.

His stories are often bittersweet, as much about loss as love. Writing One Day, he said he wanted to capture the atmosphere of a great pop song, joyous and sad, constantly shifting between major and minor keys. He succeeded, bringing the everyday experience of falling for someone epically to life. He says, I've always thought that it's often the biggest thing that happens to you, meeting someone and falling in love. It's the thing that shapes your life.

David Nicholls, welcome to Desert Island Discs. I'm very excited to be here. Thank you. Absolutely thrilled to have you. So, David, as we've heard, your novels cover so much emotional ground. And as readers, we are, of course, always rooting for your characters and we want the best for them. But I'm not sure that the same is true of you because you've said you don't find happiness a very interesting subject. No, I guess they're always shot through with a certain amount of melancholy and sadness. I never quite believe happy endings. I always want to know what happens next.

A happy ending only works if you stop the story there. If you keep rolling, there's something else to come. So I'm trying to get better at it. But I am interested in that mixture of, as you said, major and minor keys of the sadness and the joy and trying to include both. In terms of writing your characters and taking them on that journey, how does that power dynamic work for you? I wonder why you're thinking, oh, I'm sorry, there are going to be a few more trials and tribulations before we get where you're going. Yeah.

I think it's very hard to write about happiness and contentment. It's a wonderful thing to experience and a boring thing to watch. But I don't want it ever to be grim or pessimistic or miserable. I'm just trying to...

For me, the comedy and the sadness seem entwined. I can't imagine the one without the other. So they're both necessary, I think. You started out as a screenwriter, as I mentioned, but this was before the age of TV streaming. And people often say we're in a golden age of television at the moment. Has streaming been creatively beneficial as a writer, do you think?

I think so, yes. I think there are all kinds of things you can do now that were absolutely not possible. You can make the episode the length it needs to be rather than fitting a slot. You can cast in a new way because it's international. Often the budgets allow you to do things that you wouldn't necessarily be able to do with

with terrestrial TV. At the same time, I love that old tradition. That's the tradition I was brought up on of scheduled terrestrial television. I learned so much from that and I still love it now. And you love working with actors. Do you write with actors in mind often? I do. Often not necessarily practical casting choices. You know, quite often I think, oh, this is a great Katharine Hepburn role. LAUGHTER

There are certain actors who I love who aren't necessarily practical choices, but who give me a voice and an energy and a physicality that I can put onto the page. I keep those secret, but they do really help. I do carry the idea of performance even when I'm writing prose. You described imagining the atmosphere of one day as a pop.

Yeah.

Music is so important to me, absolutely. Well, I know that you've spent a lot of time and energy over choosing your final eight tracks. It's 30 years. Well, it's worth waiting for. Let's get started with your first, David Nicholls. What's your first choice today?

My first choice is that major-minor key song. When I was 16, I was listening to a lot of slightly pompous prog rock, and a friend of mine, Katie, gave me Aretha Franklin's Greatest Hits, which I loved, and I particularly loved this song, which seems simple but has all these wonderful chord changes and time signature changes, and I love the way that the main singer doesn't sing the chorus first,

And I love the warmth of the song and the emotion of it. This is Aretha Franklin singing I Say a Little Prayer. Aretha Franklin and I Say a Little Prayer.

So, David Nicholls, you were born in Eastleigh, Hampshire, in 1966. The middle child, I think, to Anne and Alan. How would you describe your childhood growing up? I think it was quite a normal, steady, suburban childhood. My dad worked in the local factory, local cake factory. My mum was a dinner lady and then she...

worked for the local council and I went to the local school and it was quite contained but a very classic happy suburban childhood, yeah. The relationship between fathers and sons is a recurring theme in your work. How would you describe your relationship with your dad?

He was very much a father of his time. He worked incredibly hard. He worked shifts, so he was always either at work or recovering from work, you know, working through the night. He was a maintenance engineer, so responsible for keeping the production line going. You know, at the time, you don't quite appreciate how stressful and fraught that was. He obviously...

I was extremely anxious about it all the time. I remember him coming home from work one day having sort of mangled the top joints of his fingers and being incredibly worried about losing his job. I think he was worried about losing his job all the time. And so there was a certain amount of stress around that. Often he'd be sleeping during the day because he'd worked all night. Did you have to be quiet? Was it that kind of thing? Yeah. He could be very loving as well. But I was around this time starting to...

become a little bit bookish, interested in different things. And it was hard to work out quite where that came from. But it wasn't easy.

You wrote about your habit of walking, which is often creative preparation for the work that you do. And I know that that began actually around the time that your dad died. Was it 2013? Yeah, yes. You've written about and said, you know, that at that time the relationship felt unresolved. I think we went in such different directions and he was always very proud and very supportive of the work I was doing, of...

fact that I did well at school. And at the same time, you know, that kind of that diversion can be quite difficult for a relationship. So we never really had a lot of very easy relationships.

personal conversations and we never quite got over that and I think the roots of that kind of did lay in my teenage years when I was starting to become interested not in science but in books and films and TV so we never quite worked our way through that I don't think. It's interesting that because that gap in understanding is present in so many of your books you know whether you think about You Are Here, your most recent book Sweet Sorrow you know that's there that that

those characters who can't quite say what they feel to one another. Yes. In many ways, it's a luxury to be able to put it into your work instead. And it's also a shame, you know, to do it. A shame not to do it in reality, I guess. But, you know, a book shouldn't be therapy, but you do have a chance to work through things to a degree.

And also to express something that's actually probably more common than we would like to admit. Yes, though you don't always necessarily have the answers. You don't always necessarily have an understanding, but you do get a chance to at least make an effort at it. Let's have some more music, David. Disc number two, What Are We Going To Hear and Why?

Well, if you were a kind of bookish, slightly pretentious teenager, Kate Bush is just what you've been waiting for. I completely idolised her as a 15-year-old and I do still now. I can't express enough how important she was and how much I admire her. And I could have chosen hundreds of songs, but this one again kind of hovers between...

and joy, and I think it's just a phenomenal piece of music. So strange and eccentric and wonderful. This is Cloudbusting by Kate Bush. Every time it rains my head Just know that something good is gonna happen But just say it, I'm on top

Kate Bush and cloud busting. So we've heard about your dad. Tell me a little bit about your mum, Anne. My mum was very present, you know, if my dad was working or resting, my mum was very much around. And I think looking back, probably a bit concerned about me. I was quite a kind of nervy kid.

I was a little bit anxious at school. It was quite a tough school and I don't think I was particularly at ease there, but mum was always very aware of that and careful and probably I was quite eccentric and nervy and strange at the time. Eccentric in what way? Well, completely.

completely obsessed with the idea of knowledge and books and just wanting to learn everything and always going to the library like three, four, five times a week, taking out the maximum number of books, just wanting to absorb everything, take everything off the shelves and suck it up.

to a degree that was certainly unusual. And I owe a massive debt, not just to my parents, but to the library. It was such a refuge and such an extraordinary resource and an inspiration for me. And I was reading in a very uncontrolled, unguided way, just really taking books at random. Did you have a particular kind of subset that took your fancy? Was it just what looked good? There was a lot of origami going on at that time.

I know you loved a book with a map at the front. I love a book with a map in the front. I love paleontology. I thought that was definitely the career. I was very into bugs and pond life and origami and military modelling and all of these strange niche hobbies. I'm very, very grateful for having that opportunity. I worry a lot now that with libraries closing that there are kids with the same kind of hunger and anxiety.

passion, who don't have that space to draw on. Because for me, it was life changing. So from everything you're saying, David, you should have been a dream pupil at school. But also from your own description, it sounds like you didn't fit in there. What was going on? What were you like at school? I think I was very earnest. I mean, swotty. You know, I was very ambitious as well. Keen to come top of the class and everything. And probably, you

I mean, not fun to be around. A little bit nervous, a little bit socially anxious, certainly, until my teens, definitely. When I reached 15 or 16, I did have a great group of friends. But until then, yes, slightly nerdy, nerdy.

Not particularly a victim of bullying. I mean, I just made myself very small and very quiet. Was university on your radar? Did you dream of going? Not till sixth form. I didn't know anyone who'd been to university. I didn't really understand university. I didn't understand how it could work if you didn't have to go to classes. How could that possibly happen? And when I got into sixth form, then it started to form as an idea. As a kid, the only contact I had with the university was through television, was through TV.

University Challenge and Brighthead Revisited. Those were my only two touchstones. Well, and obviously the first inspired start of a term. Yeah, very much so. I mean, that element of it is true. So I think at sort of 16 or 17, that's when I thought maybe of putting science to one side and doing something more, a little riskier, more literary, more in the field of English and drama.

So by your teens, you'd started to come out of your shell a little bit by the sounds of it. What helped you do that? Were you discovering music, fashion? Certainly not fashion. I don't think I ever discovered fashion. I was doing a lot of plays. I was the only boy in my school who was prepared to be in the plays. So I was promoted beyond my abilities. You know, I used to have the main part in every production because there was no one else.

But I did love being in a company. So you were the only boy prepared to be in the plays. So that also meant that you were around a lot of girls. Yeah, in a very platonic way. But you write women so well. I wonder whether, you know, your ears were open. You were taking in what you were hearing, how women thought and talked. I guess I've always found those have always been very important friendships to me. I've always felt slightly more at ease.

at ease in the company of my female friends. Yeah, I think so. Less self-conscious. And probably that does go back to that time, yeah. Let's have some more music, David. Disc number three. What have you got for us and why are we going to hear it next? I was talking earlier about libraries and how important they were to me and I was a little bit scared of David Bowie. I was scared to buy the records. I wasn't sure I'd like them. They seemed very avant-garde. But I did borrow them from the library and it felt important to have a David Bowie song. So...

This is Life on Mars, which I think is just a magnificent song. My daughter wanted Heroes, which is also a wonderful song, but it's my island, so we're having Life on Mars. Why did you choose this one? What do you love about it? The grandiosity and the mix of the classical piano and the glam rock drums and the way it goes in all kinds of unexpected directions. I think it's just a fantastic, almost ridiculous piece of music, but I love it. MUSIC PLAYS

Take a look at the love painting of the wrong guy. He's in the best of his life on Mars.

David Bowie and Life on Mars. So, David Nicholls, you went to Bristol University to study English literature and drama. Did it live up to your expectations? I gave up my chemistry A-level to do theatre studies, which was very controversial at the time, but allowed me to go to Bristol, which I loved so much. I mean, it was a huge culture shock for me. I'd never met people like this before and

Everyone seemed so sophisticated and full of ideas that I couldn't dream of, really. And it was an amazing time, full of faux pas and gauche-ness on my part, but really life-changing for me. And I was, again, very lucky. I was given a grant. I didn't have to pay any fees. I was allowed to take that risk. And

It really was a huge catalyst in my life. You know I'm going to have to ask you about the faux pas and the gauche-ness, right? Everything, really. Everything from what I wore to the performances I gave. A lot of what we were doing was devising work. And I really only knew Monty Python sketches and all of these people who'd been educated in avant-garde theatre before.

Pina Bausch and Stephen Berkhoff and all these strange ideas. I really was very, very naive, I think, and unsophisticated. It

It took me a while to find my feet, but I met wonderful people there, people who really did change my life. And I'll always be very grateful for those three years. So you mentioned comedy and I think you formed a comedy double act, didn't you? I was obsessed with comedy. This is sort of the early to mid 80s. So this is post Young Ones, post not nine o'clock news, all of that stuff, which I loved comedy.

I was very influenced by and I did kind of like the idea of pursuing it. Yeah, I used to do sketches with my best friend at university, Matthew Warchus, who's now a very brilliant theatre director, and thought for a while about pursuing that. I'm not sure how funny we were, but...

I loved doing it. And it was, I guess, my first attempt at writing. I didn't think of it as writing because they were just silly skits. But it was the first time where I finally took a deep breath and said, what about this? What if this happens? What if we say this?

And I loved doing it. Matthew very sensibly realized that it probably wasn't going to work. And he was definitely the funny one. So it sort of faded away. But for a brief time, I did think that that was what I wanted to do. Yes. What I really loved about it was the writing. And I didn't have the confidence to take a chance on that. I didn't have the confidence to commit...

to the business of coming up with characters and situations and dialogue and jokes. And that's sort of why I hung around in that world for so long. I didn't love going to the theatre. I was never a big theatre lover.

But I like being in a group of people creating something. Do you think it was the solitary nature of writing a little bit that felt more risky? Yes, definitely. And the self-expression and finding out what you want to say, which is quite difficult at 21. At 21, you're really only equipped to write coming-of-age novels. And even then, you're kind of in it. You lack the objectivity and the distance. I think it takes a while to acquire, certainly, the confidence to...

to show those ideas in written form. David, I want to hear your next track. It's time for some more music. What have we got? After university, I really didn't know what to do. I wanted to carry on acting and I also wanted to leave the country. I'd never really been abroad. And so I went to New York. I worked in a bar and I did some drama lessons at drama school on the Upper West Side.

And it was a very strange time. I mean, a ridiculous choice, really. I remember buying in Tower Records a cheap cassette of this next track, the Goldberg Variations, played by Glenn Gould.

And Bach since then has been incredibly important to me. I listen to Bach every day of my life, really. And this track in particular reminds me of sitting in my little bed sit on the Upper West Side, writing letters to friends. It felt very writerly. It felt like writing music. And is that what you wanted to pursue, that sense of creative isolation almost? Not at that stage. At that stage, I still wanted to really be in a company. But writing letters was

was incredibly important to me. The idea that you could put these words on the page and send them off to someone and they would laugh thousands of miles away, that seemed very exciting. And I guess that's perhaps the seed of me becoming a writer later on. PIANO PLAYS

The aria from Bach's Goldberg Variations, played by Glenn Gould.

So David Nicholls, after university, you were successful in gaining a scholarship to New York to study acting for a year at the American Music and Dramatic Academy. How did you fit in with your classmates there? Oh, that was definitely a misstep. I mean, they were all brilliantly talented triple threats and I could barely act. I was able to do, you know, put on a certain voice and speak Shakespeare, but I couldn't dance. I couldn't sing.

The first day we had to perform our audition song as a dramatic monologue and I was doing Mack the Knife from Throbney the Opera as a dramatic monologue. How did it go? Oh, I can't do it now. I can't do it now. I do remember it as being mortifying. The first tap dance class I thought, what am I doing here?

It was a kind of challenge to myself, I guess, to live away from home. And it was quite lonely and I was very poor. You know, I couldn't really leave this little bed set on the Upper West Side.

I enjoyed the classes, but I also recognised that it was a dead end in terms of my acting career. I certainly couldn't do an American accent. So am I right in thinking then that something starts to happen where you're going through these kind of slightly excruciating experiences, but you start to... It's that writer's trick, isn't it? Something terrible happens and you can kind of create pure gold out of...

an experience that you've had that was kind of mortifying at the time. So you stopped putting them in letters to friends. I did. That's a real writer's thing to do. I don't think other people do that in quite the same way. It's interesting that you did that then. I can definitely see the truth in that. I mean, often failure is just failure, but sometimes failure is material. I mean, the other breakthrough was I bought myself an electric typewriter and it could remember 500 words. It was a very, very, very basic kind of word processor.

I was not a great typist, but the potential to edit and rearrange and refine and clarify and turn a joke, that seemed a breakthrough as well. So being able to write in a different way and to write on a keyboard, I was starting to very much playing the role of a writer. But it was very much the beginning of that idea, I think. The real thing was sneaking up on you. Yeah, yeah.

You went back to Britain and you spent eight years in and out of work as an actor. You were with the National Theatre for three of those years, mostly working as an understudy. Did you enjoy your time there? I loved it. I mean, I had this extraordinary break. I was working in a bookshop and I got an audition to understudy in a play called Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, a new play.

And I got the part and I sat in the rehearsal room for eight weeks and saw this play come to life with these extraordinary actors, Bill Nighy and Harriet Walter and Emma Fielding, Rufus Sewell, all of them being incredible. And Tom Stoppard sitting in the room, rewriting daily, delivering new pages of the script. And to just be able to sit there and watch and realise, I realised two things really. One was that I couldn't do what the actors were doing.

And the second thing was that what Tom Stoppard was doing was much more interesting, was where the real excitement for me lay. Just hearing new jokes, seeing if they worked, working out why they didn't work. So I never went on stage again.

never performed in the play. I knew the lines. I wasn't badly cast. I could have probably got away with it if I'd ever had to go on. But nevertheless, it was another one of those failures that turned out to be a kind of education to be very, very useful. You must have had some skills though, because, you know, not everyone even makes it to be the understudy at the National Theatre. Three years, that's pretty great. What was your most successful role, would you say? I got cast as Constantine in The Sea Girl. Oh.

on the main stage of the National Theatre and it was Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Helen McCrory and me playing a servant but understudying Constantine. And I was a really good Constantine in The Seagull and instead I just used to have to run on stage every night with a broom and nod at Judi Dench and then run off. That was my part. But I did once get to play the part for an understudied dress rehearsal. How did that go?

Well, I think it went okay. But no one saw it. It was to a largely empty auditorium. And I think that was the point where I started to think...

this isn't working out. You know, it was wonderful to be a part of that world. But my parts were getting smaller, the longer I was there. I thought it would be like the civil service, you'd work your way up. But I realized that actually, my main skill as an actor was I was very reliable. And I was nice to have around. I was very punctual, I would always learn the lines. But it was like being a fire extinguisher. You didn't want to use me. You just wanted me there in the corner. So

So I decided to try and find a way out. You were a good donkey, I believe, David. I was in a kids' show, yeah, braying. But I was quite method, I think. There was a scene where the donkey gets beaten and it was quite traumatic. I got the note from the director saying, you might need to tone that down, the kids are really frightened. So it is possible to do too much? Yeah, oh, very much so.

David Nicholls, it's time for disc number five, if you wouldn't mind. What have you got for us? So I had to have a Joni Mitchell song, and this is Coyote, my favourite Joni Mitchell song, which also happens to be about Sam Shepard, the playwright. When I was thinking about writing, my good friend Matthew asked me to collaborate on an adaptation of a Sam Shepard play, Sympathago, and we went to meet him in his London hotel room.

And he was the most handsome, charismatic man I'd ever met. And we were these two slightly nervy suburban boys, fans, huge fans of Sam Shepard ever since we were at university. And we had to ask him for permission to adapt his play, which he very kindly gave. And that was my first produced screenplay. So I'm very grateful to Joni and to Sam Shepard and to my friend Matthew, who was the first person really to encourage me to write a script. MUSIC

No regrets, coyote. We just come from such different sets of circumstance. I'm up all night in the studios and you're up early on your ranch. You'll be brushing out a broodmare's tail while the sun is ascending. And I'll just be getting on with my reel-to-reel. There's no comprehending. Just how close to the bone and the skin and the eyes and the lips.

Joni Mitchell and Coyote. So, David Nicholls, one of your first paid jobs as a writer was creating four scripts for the TV series Cold Feet. They were a huge success. How did you make the move from actor to writer?

Well, it was quite a long journey, quite an erratic journey. I was a script reader for a number of film and TV companies and theatre companies. And then I became a script editor here at the BBC, in fact, in radio drama. And then I moved into television and I had this idea for a TV show. And I said to my bosses, Sally and Gwenda, that I'd like to write the first draft. And they very kindly said that was okay. And so I had a TV script. I had this Sam Shepard adaptation. I had a

Thank you.

And I learned so much. I mean, that really was my apprenticeship. What did you learn? I learned about how important structure is, how you shouldn't write the jokes until you know the shape of the story, how you have to plan, how you have to share the good material out between the actors and service the characters and make sure that they're all in character and they've all got interesting stuff to do.

Writing to length, not wasting time, making sure that the episode feels self-contained, but also means that you've got to come back the following week. All of those structural, technical skills that take a really long time to pick up. And it was very, very hard work. I only did four episodes, but I learned so much.

You've adapted a number of classic novels for the screen and TV since screenwriting's always been part of what you do. Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Far From the Madding Crowd, you won a BAFTA for Patrick Melrose, your adaptation of Edward St. Aubin's novels. When the novelist is still alive, as in that case, do you feel an extra pressure when it comes to adapting their work? It can feel quite intimidating to take someone else's characters and invent new material. I mean, you have to do that, whether it's

Thomas Hardy or Dickens or Edward St. Aubyn. There'll always be something that's necessary in a new medium. The hope is that you'll get away with it, that the joins won't show, that it'll feel like a strange kind of hybrid of the original source material with your own contribution in a very minor way, just lying underneath. So I love it. And I think for me as a writer myself, it's

Working on these extraordinary books, I've learned so much as a writer and managed to push at the edges of my own work. And they've taught me to be a bit more ambitious in what I'm capable of writing. You've talked about experiencing anxiety and insomnia. How long has that been the case for you? It's better now than it used to be. I don't have quite the same fear and anxiety. I still don't sleep particularly well, but, you know, I love my work. I think that's the thing I hold on to.

is how lucky I am to be able to work as a writer. I mean, for me, it's unexpected and a complete dream come true. And so I have to remind myself how lucky I am

And I also have to remind myself that a certain amount of concern is essential and valuable, but it can tip over into something else. Yes, definitely. And how do you keep a lid on that? How do you kind of know where the sweet spot is? I don't always know. I mean, if it gets too much, I'll go for a long walk. But I do worry a lot. Yeah.

Let's have some more music, David Nicholls. What are we going to hear? It's number six, please. Around the time that I was giving up acting and thinking about writing, I met Hannah, Hannah Weaver, my partner for 27 years. This is 1997. And in the early days of the relationship, we were doing that thing of sharing all the books and films and music that we loved. And I remember one particular Sunday afternoon meeting

Listening to this song, We Belong Together by Ricky Lee Jones on Sunday afternoon and a song that we both loved. So I'm not sure if it's our song, it might just be my song, but it's a song that makes me think of Hannah and it means a lot to me. How quickly did you know that it was serious between the two of you? Oh, very quickly. Why? Why?

I think that just a terrific sense of excitement, but also relief, thinking, oh, here we are. So it felt like homecoming in a way. Yeah, for me. I don't know what it felt like beforehand, but for me, definitely that's how it felt. We belong together.

Ricky Lee Jones and We Belong Together. David Nicholls, I started at the beginning with that quote from you, you know, falling in love is the biggest thing that happens to you. It's the thing that shapes your life. And that tracks for your partner, Hannah. How has she shaped your life, meeting her? Oh, it's very much a kind of before and after, I think. Just completely transforming, yes. And it not accidentally coincided with me really settling down to write, you know, and taking it seriously and writing with some confidence. Mm.

It felt like having the space to do that suddenly. Yeah, so I think that's definitely down to Hannah. Do you think she made you feel brave enough? I wouldn't say that myself, but that does ring true. Yeah, I think I'm sure that's true, in fact. Listen, I know you're a lover of Thomas Hardy. Am I right in thinking that it was a passage from Tessa the d'Urbervilles that sowed the seed for the book that changed everything for you one day? Yes, I read it when I was 16. I...

And then many years later, I was adapting the book for the BBC for Gemma Arterton, Eddie Redmayne, Tess and Angel. And around that time, I had this idea of writing a big epic love story covering 20 years. And I couldn't quite work out how to control that amount of material. And that seemed an interesting idea that you take an ordinary day out.

and just tell the ordinary day over and over again without revealing why it isn't an ordinary day. And that was the structural idea that led ultimately to one day. How did you settle on St Swithin's Day as the date? Well, initially I thought, could it be birthdays? Could it be Valentine's Day? Could it be New Year's Eve? And they all have the same qualities and they'd very quickly become different.

So it had to be a day which they could notice, but not always. It had to be a day that had a kind of symbolism to it. The idea behind St. Swithin's Day is that if it rains, it's going to be a wet summer, which is, of course, a ridiculous idea and shows how...

how futile it is to try and predict the future, which is also what the book is about. It was the right point in the calendar because it corresponds roughly with graduation, which is the starting point. It's 15th of July, isn't it? Yeah, 15th of July, exactly. So it corresponds with this kind of starting pistol of their lives, their adult lives beginning. So it felt like it had a kind of symbolism to it and it was the right place in the calendar. Yeah.

The book was a huge hit, published in 2009. It sold six million copies. You have said it was your most detailed novel in terms of structure. And, you know, you alluded to the kind of 20 year time frame then. So we meet the characters on the same date in different years throughout their lives. But obviously you have to know what they're doing the rest of the time. So how much work did you have to do?

that we kind of didn't see on the page, if you see what I mean, all of that structure, how extensive was it? There were a lot of charts and cards and a lot of planning and a lot of writing of the biographies and where they were each year and what was going on in between the chapters, because that was the hook, I guess, for the reader. You're going to miss 364 days of action. Where are you leaping to and how did they get there?

And so I spent a lot of time planning it out. It was a very slow process. It took much, much longer to write than my first two novels. And when I'd written the first draft, I printed it out and then I wrote it out again from scratch. And that helped just refine the prose. And it felt like I was writing in a different way. It felt like I was enjoying writing in a way that I never had before.

So it was an incredibly happy time, a long time. It took about three years to write, but I loved doing it. What an extraordinary thing to happen, to have a book that connects in such a way. Was there a moment when you realised that it had become the kind of phenomenon that it was? There was a photograph in one of the newspapers of Jerry Halliwell reading it on a sun lounger in hardback. An actual Spice Girl. Yeah.

And then shortly after that, it became something that you saw on the tube quite often, which is a big thrill for a writer to see someone reading your book. And that felt very exciting to see that it was out there in a way that I hadn't experienced before. And people were talking about it and responding to it and writing to me about it. And that was really exciting. Yeah. And unexpected, you know, because my first book had done

really well. My second book had done not so well and there were no expectations of the third book. So to see it take off in that way was thrilling. And I wonder whether it was particularly satisfying that it was kind of a word of mouth success too. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, people were responding to the manuscript in ways that I hadn't expected, very emotionally. And I knew that I'd enjoyed writing it

in a way that felt different. And I knew that I felt very attached to the characters in a way that I hadn't experienced before. But that doesn't always communicate. That doesn't always pass on to the reader. And in this instance, it seemed that it was, and that was really exciting.

All of that is really wonderful. But of course, then there comes the task of the one after that. How was that? Yeah, that was very hard because you suddenly become very self-conscious. Do you try and write the same book over and over again? Do you show your versatility and range? And do you write something completely different?

Do you write something that works internationally? It was very difficult to write for a couple of years. I was working on the screenplay of the film and that was distracting and the book was coming out around the world so I was still speaking about Emma and Dexter and then sitting down at my desk and trying to come up with new characters and I just couldn't do it. So I hesitate to call it writer's block because I was toying with ideas but I spent a year writing

I hired this very bare, grim, depressing office. And I'd lock myself in day after day. You do that to yourself creatively. I know. Why is that? You do these long walks now, which are fairly masochistic. There's going to New York where you don't know anyone. I think it's a fantasy, isn't it? Of a kind of austere, kind of Poet in a Garret kind of lifestyle that maybe that'll help. I just needed to get away from Emma and Dexter for a while. Grateful though I was for the success of the book.

It was very hard to escape them. Let's have some more music, David Nicholls. It's your seventh choice. What's it going to be? Well, I'm getting to an age now where I'm very aware of time accelerating and this is the great song on that subject. I realise this is a terrible party list. LAUGHTER

And this is probably the most... It's tender and poignant. It is. There's nothing terrible about it. But there are no bangers here, Lauren. But I do love this song. This is Who Knows Where the Time Goes by Fairport Convention, which we used in the soundtrack, actually, of the adaptation of Us. And it's a song I love very much. Who knows where the time goes? Fairport Convention.

David Nicholls, you're a keen walker. I know you love the outdoors. You love the solitude. This does sound auspicious for the island is what I'm thinking. How do you reckon you'll get on there? I think I'll be OK if I have books and music. Yeah. Or a book and music. I think that that's the main thing, really. I think complete solitude very quickly tips over into loneliness, which is something I'm very interested in.

frightened of and dread really but a certain amount of solitude is something I really cherish as long as it doesn't tip over. If I ask you to imagine the island what do you picture? I've got a very limited imagination in terms of I mean can I say palm trees? You can it can be as conventional as you like. Yeah I think it is perhaps it could be something maybe something a little cooler maybe a little more temperate would be would suit me better.

You seem to have, you know, a recurring theme of these kind of aesthetic creative habits. Does walking help your creativity? That's, you know, the latest in a fairly long list of, as you were saying, these austere kind of approaches to get yourself in the right frame of mind. It never helps quite as much as I think it's going to help. You know, I have a little notebook in my pocket, uh,

a waterproof notebook in case an idea comes to me in a rainstorm or a line for a poem or something. And it never does, thankfully. But often the experiences that you have will feed into the work in ways that you can't anticipate. So it's important to get wet and to become tired and to have the blisters. And certainly with the latest book, a lot of the inspiration came from the experience of researching the book.

even if it's not directly autobiographical, you can have these awful experiences that you can turn into comedy. And walking the coast to coast, which is the setting of the latest novel, felt very important. And what about the kind of physicality of it? You said it's not necessarily the best thing for creative work directly. Is it good for other things? Does it do you good in other ways? As you could probably guess, I always hated sport in all its forms. If someone throws a ball at me, I

completely panic if someone throws keys at me. It feels like a hostile act. I can't bear any kind of physical activity except walking. And I can walk all day. You know, I'm very happy to walk from sunrise to sunset.

So it's a very minor claim, but I'm quite good at walking for a long time. And now as I go into my 50s, I want to hold on to that for as long as I can. And would you like it to always be a solitary pleasure for you? Because there is in the most recent book you are here, there's a character who is quite ambivalent about the fact that other people are along for this walk with him. Yes. No, I love walking with friends. For a while, we used to walk a lot together as a family before the kids grew tired of that. Yeah.

And I do still walk with friends and I think there's a particular quality to the conversations you have with your friends when you walk that I really love and cherish. I know as a walker you have a no camping policy. Oh, very much so, yeah. So I'm guessing that the survival skills on the island might be somewhat lacking. Completely minimal. No, I wouldn't last a week, I'm sure. But no, unless there's a B&B there, but that's against the rules, isn't it? Sadly, yes. LAUGHTER

Oh, well, one more track before you go. Your final disc today. What are we going to hear, David Nicholls? You know, sometimes a book has a theme song. And for one day, this song was very much in my mind, Protection by Massive Attack. And also Tracy Thorne is one of those voices that I've been listening to since I was a teenager, which I absolutely love. And I think also, you know, making the recent Netflix one day was such a happy experience for

working with brilliant new talent and old friends, and it was a very, very, very happy time, and we managed to find a way to use this song in the soundtrack. So this is Protection by Massive Attack. You need some shelter She's doing so much harm Doing so much damage But you don't want to get involved Now you can't change the way she You could put your arms around

Protection. Massive attack. Which featured on the soundtrack to One Day, the new Netflix adaptation, David Nichols, which you produced and worked on. You know, you wrote, was it one or two of the episodes? I exec produced and I wrote the penultimate episode. They very kindly let me write one. What was it like revisiting Emma Dexter at this point in your life? It was very strange because, you know, the books you write belong to the age you are at the time. And I

I love one day, but I would do it very differently now if I do it at all. In fact, I couldn't do it now. It very much belongs to my 41-year-old self, just become a father, just thinking about this new stage of life.

But by the time I sat down to write the script, we'd cast Amber Kerr and Leo as M and Dex. And so I had their faces and their voices to draw on. And that's something I really love, writing with actors in mind. And so it was a real joy. I feel rather differently about the story now than when I wrote it, but very happy. In what way?

When I wrote it, I wanted to write a big, lush love story. And looking at it now, nearly 20 years further on, 18 years since I started writing it, it seems to me to be about a friendship and made me think very fondly of all the friends I'd had along the way who'd kind of, you know, who changed the course of your life. And that seemed apparent to me in a way it hadn't when I sat down to write it. And also...

It's a period drama now. The relationship between now and 1988 is the same as between 1988 and the Suez Crisis. It's a long time ago. And so it's very strange seeing younger people watch it.

So, David Nicholls, I'm about to send you away to the island. I'm giving you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. You can also take one book of your own choice. I'm sure it's very difficult to decide. Yes, I didn't want to choose a favourite book. I wanted to choose a book to read in you. So I've read the first chapter of Anna Karenina maybe five times.

And this is my chance to finish it, to get to the end. Okay. So apart from having completed it and the satisfaction, what is it about this one that made you want to take it to the island? I think it's the great love story that I haven't read. People are quite shocked and surprised that I haven't read Anna Karenina. And I love that first chapter. And it does feel like a mission. I think Anna Karenina and Middlemarch are the big gaps in my reading education. So this is my chance. I think we'll give you the Tolstoy rather than the Elliot. Okay. You

You can have one luxury item as well. What would you like? Well, I love music and I have no musical ability at all. And again, maybe this is my chance to finally crack the piano. When I was a teenager, again, I used to, I got to maybe grade two, I think, and I used to play the first four bars of Let It Be over and over and over again in the music practice rooms at school. And I could never really handle anything with a sharp or a flat.

But I like a piano and a huge pile of sheet music of all the songs I love and

scales and chords and a chance to finally get beyond grade two. Oh, absolutely. It's yours. And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you rush to save from the waves first? I'm aware it's quite a melancholy list. And I suppose the one that has the most joy for me is I Say a Little Prayer. I mean, what a great song, what an amazing vocal. So I'd probably choose I Say a Little Prayer, I think.

David Nicholls, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Thank you. It's been an honour.

Hello. It was lovely to chat to David and I hope he's happy on his island, improving his piano playing. There are more than 2,000 programmes in our archive which you can listen to. We've cast many writers away to the island over the years, including John Boyne, Anne Cleaves, Deborah Levy and Zadie Smith. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or on our own Desert Island Discs website. The studio manager for today's programme was Jackie Marjoram.

The production coordinator was Susie Roylands and the producer was Sarah Taylor. Join me next time when my guest will be the gardener and writer, Sarah Raven. MUSIC PLAYS

Hello, I'm Brian Cox. And I'm Robin Ince, and we are back with a new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. Robin, in 15 seconds or less, can you sum up the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage? Yes, I can. Do you want to learn how to win at every single board game you ever play, including Monopoly and Cluedo? Do you want to know about alien life coming from Glastonbury? Do you want to know about the wonder of trees with Judi Dench? And do you also want to know about the unexpected history of science with Rufus Hound and others at the Royal Society? How is it unexpected?

I don't know which is why it's unexpected. It's unexpected to me. It might not be to the listeners. The Infinite Monkey Cage. Listen first on BBC Sounds.