Best BITTERSWEET
There can’t be a writer who captures the bittersweet romance of modern life better than David Nicholls – as anyone who watched this autumn’s must-see BBC adaptation of his 2014 novel, Us, will testify. Starring Tom Hollander as Us’s hapless hero Douglas as he tries to save his marriage by carting his wife and son on tour of Europe’s cultural capitals, Us was almost unbearably poignant in its depiction of places, and a way of life, that is no longer possible for us in a pandemic.
Us aired on TV in the oddly hopeful period between lockdowns when foreign holidays were briefly a possibility for some. ‘It was meant to go out earlier, but it would have been too painful seeing all those places,’ says David. He is in his kitchen, making spinach daal while we talk. In the event, Us was screened after the paperback publication of David’s most recent novel, Sweet Sorrow, making him a valued presence of kindness and humanity in a year when those qualities have never been more welcome.
David, who has a dual career as a screenwriter and a novelist, wrote the adaptation of – as he has done for all five of his novels. ‘It’s quite painful because you have to accept but there are things that won’t work on screen,’ he says. ‘ is a monologue written in a particular voice, and you have to cut all those inner thoughts, but once you can accept that you have to be ruthless, I quite enjoyed working on
