David Quantick
David Quantick (born 14 May 1961) is an English novelist, comedy writer and critic, who has worked as a journalist and screenwriter. A former staff writer for the music magazine "NME", his writing credits have included "On the Hour", "Blue Jam", "TV Burp" and "Veep"; for the latter of these he won an Emmy in 2015. Biography. Quantick was born in Wortley, West Riding of Yorkshire (now South Yorkshire) on 14 May 1961, adopted, and moved at an early age with his family to Plymouth. Quantick went to Woodford Junior School and Plymouth College, then Exmouth Comprehensive School . David Quantick began writing for the music publication "NME" in 1983, where with Steven Wells he concentrated on comedy writing until 1995. Alongside this, he also contributed material to British comedy shows such as "Spitting Image". In 1992, he joined the writing team for the Radio 4 spoof news programme "On the Hour", before writing for the television follow-up "The Day Today" in 1994. He appeared regularly on "Collins and Maconie's Hit Parade" (Radio 1, 1994–1997), with his "Quantick's World" slot and on the weekly show, "The Treatment" on BBC Radio Five Live, which was an hour -long satirical news round-up. In 1995, Quantick presented a pilot show called "Now What?" to Carlton Television but he series was not picked up for development. He wrote with Chris Morris for "Brass Eye" in 1996 (broadcast in 1997) and "Blue Jam" (Radio 1, 1997), as well as the subsequent television version "Jam" (Channel 4, 2000). He also provided material for "Smack the Pony" (Channel 4, 1999–2001), "Harry Enfield's Brand Spanking New Show" (Sky One, 2000) and featured on Radio 4's "The 99p Challenge". Working with Jane Bussmann, he co-wrote and performed "Bussmann & Quantick Kingsize" for  BBC Radio 4 in 1998. In 2000, the pair created what Quantick has claimed was the world's first internet sitcom and "docusitcom" (documentary/sitcom), "Junkies", about three heroin addicts. Starring Peter Baynham, Sally Phillips and Peter Serafinowicz, the writing pair claimed the project grew out of their frustration with the commissioning process. They argued the average sitcom cost £200,000 to make and was difficult to finance, so they secured the services of cast and crew on a voluntary basis and made a show for less than £4,000. The site received over a million visits in its first  eight months of existence. In 2000, Quantick's biography of The Clash was published, with further books on Beck, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and Bill Hicks appearing in 2001. That year he collaborated with Andrew Collins and Stuart Maconie on "Lloyd Cole Knew My Father", a live show about working as a music journalist. A performance was later broadcast on Radio 2 as a six-episode series. In 2003 and 2005, Quantick contributed material to sketch show "That Mitchell and Webb Sound", five series of "15 Minute Musical" (2004–08) and several series of "Parsons and Naylor's Pull-Out Sections . He also made several appearances on Clive Anderson's radio panel show We've Been Here Before" in 2003 and 2004. In 2005 he appeared in Channel 4's "Come Dine with Me". Between 2003 and 2005 Quantick co-presented a weekly programme "One Way Single Parent Family Favourites" on London based community arts radio station Resonance FM. In 2006 he wrote and presented series 3 of 'The Blagger's Guide', a six-part comedy series on BBC Radio 2 and appeared as "Doctor Dave Radio" on Radio 2 comedy programme, "Radio Rivron". Between 2001 and 2012 He was also  part of the writing team of "Harry Hill's TV Burp". Following its final series, Quantick contributed material to "The Thick of It", helped write material for the comedian Rob Brydon, and recorded further editions of "The Blagger's Guide" for Radio 2 until 2014. In September 2012, Quantick published an e-book novel, "Sparks", which was positively reviewed by Neil Gaiman and Ben Aaronovitch. He produced a four-episode comedy series "52 First Impressions with David Quantick" for Radio 4 in 2014 in which he recounted stories about 52 individuals he had encountered in his life/career. He received  an Emmy in 2015 for his work on the HBO series "Veep". That year he crowd-funded a novel "The Mule" via the Unbound company which was released on 25 February 2016. He had two writing manuals published with Oberon Books: "How To Write Everything" in 2015, then "How to Be a Writer: Conversations With Writers About Writing" the following year. In April 2019 his novel "All My Colors" came out, described by the author David M Barnett as "a blend of Murakami-ish otherworldliness, Stephen King small town horror and Douglas Adams-esque absurdity."