Nick Newman (born
17 July
1958) is a satirical British cartoonist and
comedy scriptwriter.
The son of
an RAF officer, Newman was born in Kuala Lumpur
and schooled at Ardingly College where his satirical career
began, working on revues with Ian Hislop. In his last term at Ardingly
Newman was 'asked to leave' (thrown out), after wiring up the
chapel to play rock music during a chapel service.
Despite this incident
Newman managed to secure a place at Oxford University
where he read history, and continued to be friends
with Ian Hislop. Hislop and Newman
subsequently worked together on
Spitting
Image from 2003 - 2009, wrote for
Maureen Lipman and co-wrote several episodes
of
Murder Most Horrid for
Dawn French. Newman and
Hislop's credits also include two series of
My Dad's the Prime
Minister for
BBC 1, sketches for
The Harry Enfield Show,
creating the character Tim Nice-But-Dim, and the
BBC Radio 4 series
Gush, a satire based
on the first
Gulf War, in the style of
Jeffrey Archer. Writing for radio ,
he has co-written all episodes of
Dave Podmore's World of
Cricket,
Dave Podmore's
Ashes and
Strictly Dave
Podmore - with Chris Douglas and Andrew Nickolds. Also with
Chris Douglas, he wrote 2 series of
Mastering the Universe for
Dawn French on Radio 4. In 2008 he co-wrote
A Bunch of Amateurs -starring
Burt Reynolds, Sir Derek Jacobi and Samantha Bond - which was the
Royal Film Performance for that year.
Newman’s
cartooning career was launched in 1976, when he
sold his first drawings to Yachting Monthly – and by 1981 he was working regularly for Private Eye
. Since
1989, he has been
pocket cartoonist for
The Sunday
Times. His cartoons and strips have appeared in many other
publications including
Punch and
The Spectator. He also draws for The
Times Higher Education Supplement (THE), Estates Gazette. The
Wisden Cricketer, the Wisden Almanack and The Big Issue. The
Cartoon Art Trust voted him Pocket Cartoonist of the Year
1997 and Gag Cartoonist of the Year
1998 and
2005. He won the Sports
Journalists’ Association’s award for Sports Cartoonist of the Year
in
2005,
2007 and
2008.
He has produced many cartoon anthologies and books - including 3
Wallace & Gromit adventures (with Tristan Davies. Pub. Hodder
& Stoughton).
References