John O'Farrell's first book Things Can Only Get Better about his years spent helping the Labour Party lose elections at every level was a number one best-seller. Two decades later he published the sequel Things Can Only Get Worse. In between his two comic memoirs, he published five novels, including The Best A Man Can Get, May Contain Nuts and The Man Who Forgot His Wife; two funny history books (An Utterly Impartial History of Britain and its sequel) plus three collections of his satirical columns from The Guardian.

His books have been translated into over thirty languages and adapted for TV and radio. Formerly a comedy scriptwriter for shows such as Spitting Image and Have I Got News For You, he more recently co-wrote the movie Chicken Run 2, the Broadway musicals Something Rotten! and Mrs Doubtfire and the forthcoming Just For One Day - The Story of Live Aid, which opens at the Old Vic in 2024.