Nichols, Peter Richard

Nichols, Peter Richard (1927– ), English playwright, who had written a number of television plays before he had an unexpected success in the theatre with A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1967; NY, 1968), transferred from the Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow. This portrayal of the stresses imposed on parents by the care of a spastic child was followed by The National Health (1969; NY, 1974), set in a men's ward for incurables and including fantasy scenes in the style of a television serial; Forget-Me-Not Lane (1971), in which the action switches between past and present as the middle-aged narrator looks back on his adolescence in the 1940s; and the more conventional Chez nous (1974; NY, 1977), whose London cast included Albert Finney and Geraldine McEwan. The Freeway (also 1974), like The National Health, was produced by the National Theatre, and Privates on Parade (1977), a musical about an army concert party, by the RSC. In Born in the Gardens (1980) an eccentric lady, newly widowed, and her middle-aged son still living at home are contrasted with her two other, more ambitious, children, returned for their father's funeral. One of Nichols's most highly praised plays, Passion Play (RSC, 1981; NY, as Passion, 1983), a complex study of adultery, shows great technical virtuosity in bringing on stage the alter egos of the two main characters. After writing the book and lyrics of Poppy (RSC, 1982), a pantomime-style musical about the Opium War between Britain and China, he announced his retirement from the theatre. A Piece of My Mind (1987) was a possibly autobiographical play about a playwright with writer's block.