# David Quantick
**David Quantick** (born 1961) is an English novelist, comedy writer, critic and broadcaster who has worked as a music journalist and television, radio and film screenwriter. He began at the music paper NME in 1983, moved into comedy writing through the satirist [Armando Iannucci](https://www.edgepedia.org/armando-iannucci)'s circle, and has written for *The Day Today*, *Brass Eye*, *The Thick of It*, *Harry Hill's TV Burp* and the American series *Veep*, for which he has been described as an Emmy-winning writer.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born | 1961, Wortley, South Yorkshire; adopted as an infant and raised in Plymouth[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0702880/bio) |
| First career | NME music journalist from 1983, comedy-writing with Steven Wells until the mid-1990s[2](https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/david-quantick-new-book-night-train-coronavirus-neil-gaiman-a9679736.html) |
| Comedy breakthrough | Invited by Armando Iannucci to write for Radio 4's *On the Hour* (1992), then its television successor *The Day Today* (1994)[3](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0702880/) |
| Emmy | Emmy-winning writer on HBO's *Veep*; sources date the award to 2015 and 2019 (see below)[4](https://wearecult.rocks/cult-q-a-david-quantick) • [5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/david-quantick-interview-book-of-love-b2001754.html) |
| First novel | *Sparks* (2012), self-published after agents declined it; *The Mule* followed from Unbound in 2016[2](https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/david-quantick-new-book-night-train-coronavirus-neil-gaiman-a9679736.html) |
| Nonfiction | The Sunday Times best-selling *Grumpy Old Men* books and two writing manuals, *How To Write Everything* and *How To Be a Writer*[6](https://www.bloomsbury.com/UK/author/david-quantick/) |
| Film | *Book of Love* (2022), a romantic comedy starring Sam Claflin and Verónica Echegui[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/david-quantick-interview-book-of-love-b2001754.html) |
| Home | Hastings, where he lives with his wife and two children[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/david-quantick-interview-book-of-love-b2001754.html) |
## Early life
Quantick was born in 1961 in a mother-and-baby home in Wortley, Yorkshire. His mother, who lived in the Midlands, went to stay with an aunt in [Derbyshire](https://www.edgepedia.org/derbyshire) to conceal the pregnancy, and he was adopted by a family living in [Sheffield](https://www.edgepedia.org/sheffield) that later moved to Plymouth[7](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/cost.4.2.241_1). He spent the 1970s partly in Exmouth and attended Plymouth College and Exmouth Comprehensive School[8](https://letterboxd.com/writer/david-quantick/). He studied for a law degree at [University College London](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-college-london), where he found he had no aptitude for the subject and remembered the moot courts chiefly for the cape he dressed up in[8](https://letterboxd.com/writer/david-quantick/).
## Music journalism
**NME years.** Quantick joined the New Musical Express in 1983, writing alongside figures such as [Danny Baker](https://www.edgepedia.org/danny-baker) and Paul Morley, and stayed through the magazine's 1990s peak, leaving in 1997[2](https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/david-quantick-new-book-night-train-coronavirus-neil-gaiman-a9679736.html). With Steven Wells he concentrated on the paper's comic, snippet-style sections until 1995, and he also freelanced for Q under the pseudonym Jimmy Nicol, Ringo Starr's short-term replacement in the Beatles[9](https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/download/7b024ef8b8cced4a9555c99f5901c190bca7875e3c9be620a328524cf5eeb864/21494713/Forde.pdf). He has said music journalism was always a stepping stone: on his 30th birthday, interviewing the indie band Thousand Yard Stare in Paris, he realized he wanted to write his own material rather than report on other people's[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/david-quantick-interview-book-of-love-b2001754.html).
## Television comedy
The turn came through a column. Quantick wrote a column called Culture Vulture with Steven Wells, and Armando Iannucci, the Scottish writer and producer, read it and wrote to the pair asking if they wanted to work with him[2](https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/david-quantick-new-book-night-train-coronavirus-neil-gaiman-a9679736.html). That led to the Radio 4 spoof news program *On the Hour* in 1992 and its television follow-up *The Day Today* in 1994, the parody news show that also launched [Steve Coogan](https://www.edgepedia.org/steve-coogan)'s Alan Partridge[3](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0702880/) • [2](https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/david-quantick-new-book-night-train-coronavirus-neil-gaiman-a9679736.html).
He rejoined the Chris Morris and Iannucci axis to write for *Brass Eye* with Jane Bussmann in 1997, and worked with Morris again on the less incendiary *Jam* in 2000[3](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0702880/). The 2001 *Brass Eye* Paedophile Special proved so controversial that government ministers condemned it without having seen it[3](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0702880/).
**Breadth of credits.** Quantick has described his own CV as random and eclectic[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/david-quantick-interview-book-of-love-b2001754.html). He was part of the writing team on *Harry Hill's TV Burp* for over a decade[7](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/cost.4.2.241_1) and contributed additional material to *The Rob Brydon Show* and the final series of *The Thick of It*[10](https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/david_quantick/). In the United States he wrote for HBO's political satire *Veep* and for Iannucci's space comedy *Avenue 5*, and has continued to write for television on both sides of the Atlantic[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/david-quantick-interview-book-of-love-b2001754.html). The date of his Emmy is reported inconsistently: a 2016 interview describes him as having "scooped Emmy awards as part of the writing team" for *Veep* in 2015[4](https://wearecult.rocks/cult-q-a-david-quantick), while a 2022 interview states he "won an Emmy in 2019" for the show[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/david-quantick-interview-book-of-love-b2001754.html). A profile of his work notes one Primetime Emmy win among his total of seven wins and five nominations[3](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0702880/).
With Jane Bussmann he created *The Junkies*, a 1999 pilot about heroin addicts that IMDb describes as the world's first online sitcom[3](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0702880/). His radio work includes creating Radio 4's *One*, Radio 2's *The Blagger's Guide*, and the four-part 2014 series *52 First Impressions with David Quantick*, in which he told stories about 52 people he had encountered in his life and career[6](https://www.bloomsbury.com/UK/author/david-quantick/). His adaptation of Ian R. MacLeod's short story *Snodgrass*, in which [John Lennon](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-lennon) survives and lives in Birmingham, was broadcast in the Sky Arts Playhouse series in 2013[7](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/cost.4.2.241_1).
## Novels and books
Quantick turned to fiction in 2012 with *Sparks*, about a slacker who travels between alternate realities after being dumped. Agents declined it, so he self-published online, earning, by his account, about £3 a week. The novelist [Neil Gaiman](https://www.edgepedia.org/neil-gaiman) praised it anyway, calling Quantick "one of the best-kept secrets in the world of writing", which gave him the confidence to write more[2](https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/david-quantick-new-book-night-train-coronavirus-neil-gaiman-a9679736.html). *The Mule*, a comic caper about a book translator caught in a conspiracy, appeared from the crowd-funded publisher Unbound in 2016[2](https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/david-quantick-new-book-night-train-coronavirus-neil-gaiman-a9679736.html).
His later novels include *All My Colors* (2019), a horror story about a man who remembers a novel that may not exist, built from his own decades-long failure to rediscover a science fiction story he read as a teenager[11](https://www.sublimehorror.com/books/all-my-colors-interview-with-david-quantick/); *Night Train* (Titan Books, 2020), about a passenger who wakes in a carriage full of dead people; and *Ricky's Hand* (2022), described by its author as an [Elmore Leonard](https://www.edgepedia.org/elmore-leonard)-style story about a man who wakes with someone else's hand on his arm[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/david-quantick-interview-book-of-love-b2001754.html). In nonfiction he wrote the Sunday Times best-selling *Grumpy Old Men* books, a series of music biographies and books, the official biography of [Eddie Izzard](https://www.edgepedia.org/eddie-izzard), and the writing manuals *How To Write Everything* and *How To Be a Writer*, which interview writers and others in the trade, including an agent and his own accountant[6](https://www.bloomsbury.com/UK/author/david-quantick/) • [11](https://www.sublimehorror.com/books/all-my-colors-interview-with-david-quantick/). More recent work includes the short story collection *And Other Stories* (Into Books) and the children's novella *Imagine a Friend*, scheduled for publication on March 10, 2026 by Stars and Sabers[12](https://davidquantick.com/) • [13](https://quantick.substack.com/p/imagine-a-friend).
## Film
**Book of Love.** The idea for the 2022 romantic comedy came, Quantick says, from a drink with a translator about ten years earlier: what if a dry book became, in translation, a completely different and much racier one[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/david-quantick-interview-book-of-love-b2001754.html)? The film stars [Sam Claflin](https://www.edgepedia.org/sam-claflin) as Henry, a British novelist whose stodgy work *The Sensible Heart* fails in Britain but succeeds in Mexico, and was filmed in Mexico by the director Analeine Cal y Mayor, who shares the screenplay credit[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/david-quantick-interview-book-of-love-b2001754.html). Quantick said he deliberately did not try to copy [Richard Curtis](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-curtis) or [Nora Ephron](https://www.edgepedia.org/nora-ephron), arguing that a good romantic comedy is about two people who fancy each other and spar[5](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/david-quantick-interview-book-of-love-b2001754.html). *Book of Love* won an Imagen Award in 2022[14](https://mynachang.com/2026/01/27/author-interview-david-quantick/).
## Radio recognition and later work
*Whatever Happened to Baby Jane Austen?*, a Radio 4 sitcom for French and Saunders that Quantick described as a tribute to screwball comedy and to the Collins sisters, ran to a pilot in 2020 and three series by 2025[10](https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/david_quantick/). The Writers' Guild of Great Britain named it Best Radio Comedy at its 2023 awards[10](https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/david_quantick/). Alongside his books he has written regularly for *Record Collector* magazine and hosted "quite difficult" pub quizzes for over fifteen years[15](https://www.hachette.co.uk/contributor/david-quantick/).
## References
1. [David Quantick - Biography, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0702880/bio)
2. [The science fiction horror story that perfectly sums up 2020, The Independent](https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/david-quantick-new-book-night-train-coronavirus-neil-gaiman-a9679736.html)
3. [David Quantick, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0702880/)
4. [Cult Q & A: David Quantick, We Are Cult](https://wearecult.rocks/cult-q-a-david-quantick)
5. [David Quantick interview: 'I wanted to write the bitchiest thing imaginable', The Independent](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/david-quantick-interview-book-of-love-b2001754.html)
6. [David Quantick, Bloomsbury Publishing](https://www.bloomsbury.com/UK/author/david-quantick/)
7. [Interview with David Quantick: Chance meetings, mutual connections…a writer's tale, Comedy Studies](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/cost.4.2.241_1)
8. [Films written by David Quantick, Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/writer/david-quantick/)
9. [While still at the NME... (Westminster research paper)](https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/download/7b024ef8b8cced4a9555c99f5901c190bca7875e3c9be620a328524cf5eeb864/21494713/Forde.pdf)
10. [David Quantick, British Comedy Guide](https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/david_quantick/)
11. [All My Colors interview with David Quantick, Sublime Horror](https://www.sublimehorror.com/books/all-my-colors-interview-with-david-quantick/)
12. [The official website for David Quantick](https://davidquantick.com/)
13. [Imagine A Friend, David Quantick on Substack](https://quantick.substack.com/p/imagine-a-friend)
14. [Author Interview: David Quantick, Myna Chang](https://mynachang.com/2026/01/27/author-interview-david-quantick/)
15. [David Quantick, Hachette UK](https://www.hachette.co.uk/contributor/david-quantick/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Screen people and creators › Screenwriters and television writers › Television writers*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 12, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license