Andrew Davies (writer)


Andrew Wynford Davies is a Welsh screenwriter and novelist, best known for his television adaptations of To Serve Them All My Days, House of Cards, Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House, War & Peace, and Les Misérables, and his original serial A Very Peculiar Practice. He was made a BAFTA Fellow in 2002.

Education and early career

Davies was born in Rhiwbina, Cardiff, Wales. He attended Whitchurch Grammar School in Cardiff and then University College, London, where he received a BA in English in 1957. He took a teaching position at St Clement Danes Grammar School in London, where he was on the teaching staff from 1958 to 1961. He held a similar post at Woodberry Down Comprehensive School in Hackney, London from 1961 to 1963. Following that, he was a lecturer in English at Coventry College of Education, and then at the University of Warwick.
In 1960, Davies contributed material to the BBC Home Service's Monday Night at Home strand, alongside Harold Pinter and Ivor Cutler. He wrote his first play for radio in 1964 and many more were to follow. In 1960, he married Diana Huntley; the couple have a son and daughter. Huntley died in 2023. In a 2025 interview with The New York Times, Davies said he was still adjusting to life without her. He is resident in Kenilworth, Warwickshire.

Writer

Davies' first television play, Who's Going to Take Me On?, was broadcast in 1967 as part of BBC1's The Wednesday Play strand. His early plays were written as a sideline to his work in education, many of them appearing in anthology series such as Thirty Minute Theatre, Play for Today and Centre Stage. One of his London stage plays, Rose, played on Broadway in 1981, with Glenda Jackson and Jessica Tandy. His first serial adaptation of a work of fiction was To Serve Them All My Days, from the novel by R. F. Delderfield. He wrote A Very Peculiar Practice, a campus based comedy-drama series that drew upon his career in education.
He is now best known for his adaptations of classic works of literature for television including
the Charles Dickens short story The Signalman, Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, Vanity Fair, Bleak House and Sense and Sensibility. He is the writer of the screenplays for the BBC production Middlemarch and a planned film of the same name once announced for 2011 release.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1996.
Davies also co-devised with Bernadette Davis the sitcom Game On for BBC2 and co-wrote the first two series broadcast in 1995 and 1996. The popularity of his adaptation of Michael Dobbs's political thriller House of Cards was a significant influence in Dobbs's decision to write two sequels, which Davies also adapted for television. In film, he has collaborated on the screenplays for the first two Bridget Jones films, based on Helen Fielding novels.
He is a prolific writer for children. The first of his novels was Conrad's War, published by Blackie in 1978. Davies won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, which is judged by a panel of British children's writers and recognises the best book by an author who has not yet won it. He has written Alfonso Bonzo and the adventures of Marmalade Atkins. He also wrote the stories Dark Towers and Badger Girl for BBC TV's Look and Read programmes for schools audiences.
2008 saw the release of his adaptations of the 1999 novel Affinity by Sarah Waters, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit. Little Dorrit won seven of eleven Emmy nominations and earned Davies his second Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries.
Adaptations of Dombey and Son, one of Dickens' lesser-read works and Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels were scrapped by the BBC in late 2009, following a move away from "bonnet dramas".
ITV was looking to recreate its period drama success with Downton Abbey with a new series Mr Selfridge, written by Davies and starring Jeremy Piven. An initial ten-part series first aired on 6 January 2013 and it has run for 4 series by 2016.
Davies' six-part adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War & Peace was broadcast on BBC One in January and February 2016. Following its success, the BBC announced in July 2016 that it would be followed up with a six-part adaptation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables to be scripted by Davies. In May 2017, it was announced that BBC would adapt Vikram Seth's magnum opus A Suitable Boy into an eight-part series to be scripted by Davies.
In May 2018, he announced at the Hay Festival that he is adapting John Updike's Rabbit, Run for television.

Filmography

Television series and serials

Eleanor Marx The Legend of King Arthur To Serve Them All My Days Dark Towers Educating Marmalade Diana Badger Girl Danger: Marmalade at Work A Very Peculiar Practice Mother Love House of Cards The Old Devils Anglo-Saxon Attitudes The Boot Street Band To Play the King Middlemarch Game On Pride and Prejudice The Final Cut Wilderness The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders Bill's New Frock Vanity Fair Wives and Daughters Take a Girl Like You The Way We Live Now Daniel Deronda Doctor Zhivago Tipping the Velvet He Knew He Was Right Bleak House The Line of Beauty The Diary of a Nobody Fanny Hill Sense and Sensibility Little Dorrit South Riding Mr Selfridge Quirke War & Peace Les Misérables Sanditon

Television plays

Who's Going to Take Me On? Is That Your Body, Boy? No Good Unless It Hurts The Water Maiden Grace The Imp of the Perverse A Martyr to the System The Signalman Velvet Glove Fearless Frank Renoir My Father After the Gold Rush Bavarian Night Marmalade Atkins in Space Heartattack Hotel Baby I Love You Pythons on the Mountain Time After Time Inappropriate Behaviour Lucky Sunil A Private Life Ball Trap on the Cote Sauvage Filipina Dreamgirls A Very Polish Practice Anna Lee Harnessing Peacocks A Few Short Journeys of the Heart Emma Getting Hurt A Rather English Marriage Othello Boudica Falling The Chatterley Affair Northanger Abbey A Room with a View Affinity Sleep with Me

Feature film

Consuming Passions Circle of Friends The Tailor of Panama Bridget Jones's Diary Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason Brideshead Revisited

Children's books

Conrad's War —winner of the Guardian PrizeMarmalade and Rufus The Legend of King Arthur —novelization of Davies' eight-part BBC serial of the same name The Fantastic Feats of Doctor Boox Marmalade Atkins in Space Educating Marmalade Danger! Marmalade at Work Marmalade Hits the Big Time

Novels

A Very Peculiar Practice —novelization of the first series of A Very Peculiar PracticeA Very Peculiar Practice: The New Frontier —novelization of the second seriesGetting Hurt Dirty Faxes ― linked short storiesB. Monkey — adapted by others as the 1998 film ''B. Monkey''

Stage plays

Diary of a Desperate Woman Rose
  • ''Prin''

Picture books

Andrew and Diana Davies have written at least two children's picture books.Poonam's Pets, illustrated by Paul DowlingRaj In Charge, illus. Debi Gliori

Further references

  • Cardwell, Sarah 'Andrew Davies'. Manchester: MUP.