David Gordon Nobbs (13 March 1935 – 8 August 2015) was an English comedy writer, most notable for writing the 1970s television series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, adapted from his own novels.
Nobbs was born in Orpington, Kent. Following an education at Marlborough College and St John's College, Cambridge, he worked as a reporter for the Sheffield Star, before starting his career in comedy as a writer for That Was The Week That Was in the early 1960s. He wrote for many of Britain's comedy performers over the years, including Kenneth Williams, Frankie Howerd, Les Dawson and The Two Ronnies.
Nobbs was the creator of the sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79), adapted from his own Reginald Perrin novels, which "told the story of a man living an escapist fantasy in response to the mundanity of his daily commute". The TV series starred Leonard Rossiter as Perrin.
Nobbs also wrote the comedy/drama series A Bit of a Do (1989) and the Henry Pratt series of novels, the fourth of which, Pratt à Manger, was published in 2006. His novel It Had to be You was published in 2011.
A passionate humanist and a believer in the ideals of secularism, Nobbs was a longstanding Patron of the British Humanist Association. Although he was devoutly religious into his teens, at 18 Nobbs realised he was an atheist. From then on and throughout his career, he used his writing to explore humanist ideas about the nature of people and relationships. In particular, he cited his novels Obstacles to Young Love and It Had to Be You as two books strongly influenced by humanism, saying "I would describe them as being humanist books as well as humorous ones":
…[T]he most important thing that happened to me in the wake of my mother's death wasn't the strengthening of my feelings against religion. It was the strengthening of my feelings for disbelief. I believe that there are just as many of the "Christian virtues" to be found among the faithless as the faithful. Furthermore, these qualities are explored and developed along individual paths. We have no God whom we can burden with the responsibility for our actions. Loss of faith: it sounds so negative. I didn’t lose faith. I gained faith. Faith in people. I am proud to describe myself as a humanist. Last year I joined the British Humanist Association, and I don’t think I would have made this move if I had not seen my mother die that sunny Sunday morning.
After becoming a Patron of the BHA, Nobbs supported the charity across both its campaigning work and its support for non-religious people through services. In September 2010 Nobbs, along with 54 other public figures, signed a BHA open letter published in The Guardian, stating his opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK. In 2014 he was one of a number of high-profile signatories of an open letter that challenged David Cameron on his assertions that Britain was a "Christian country". That same year, he wrote the foreword to a new edition of Jane Wynne Wilson's book about humanist funerals, Funerals Without God, writing that "One cannot think of the significance of a humanist death without thinking about the significance of a humanist life, and I gradually found, beneath the facts and practical suggestions, a pretty good account of what it is to be a humanist, and how much more there is to it than just not believing in God."
A Piece of the Sky is Missing (1969)
The Death of Reginald Perrin (1975, later reissued as The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin)
The Return of Reginald Perrin (1977)
The Better World of Reginald Perrin (1978)
Second From Last in the Sack Race (1983)
The Legacy of Reginald Perrin (1996)
Obstacles to Young Love (2010)
The Fall and Rise of Gordon Coppinger (2012)
The Second Life of Sally Mottram (2014)
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
Dogfood Dan and the Carmarthen Cowboy