The University of Sunderland Professor who has written for The Thick of It and Brass Eye wins prestigious comedy award after penning BBC sitcom starring French and Saunders

Professor David Quantick, 61, who teaches as part of the University of Sunderland's Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries, has helped pen many much loved TV comedy shows including The Thick of It, The Day Today, Brass Eye and TV Burp starring Harry Hill.

He has also contributed to longstanding satirical TV classic, Spitting Image.

However, it’s for his creation of BBC Radio 4s ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane Austen?’ that David has been awarded the prize for Best Radio Sitcom at the seventeenth Comedy.co.uk Awards by the British Comedy Guide.

Reuniting Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, the production focuses on two sisters, novelist Florence Ransom and movie star Selina Mountjoy, who have avoided each other for decades but are forced together once more when Selina returns to the UK to promote her autobiography Kiss And Tell.

David, who began his professorship with the university in 2019, said: "I am totally delighted that Whatever Happened To Baby Jane Austen? has won this award because the British Comedy Guide is the home of quality comedy appreciation. Thanks to everyone who liked the show and voted for it.

"Winning an award for writing a radio show is important to me because as well as being a great honour, it also highlights the improved importance of being a writer in different contexts. I always stress to the students the importance of variety and flexibility in writing."

Congratulating David on his success, Lee Hall, Head of School of Media and Communications, said: "David is an uncompromising comedy genius, so it's no surprise he has won another accolade.

"It makes us enormously proud. He inspires our students to find their voice and go all out for a career doing something they love."

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An award-winning writer on US TV network HBO for his comedy Veep, David has also penned the critically-acclaimed Sky Arts Playhouse, Snodgrass. As a radio writer he created Radio 4's, One and Radio 2's The Blagger's Guide.

David also wrote the Sunday Times best-seller Grumpy Old Men, Eddie Izzard’s biography and has written for over 50 magazines and newspapers, from The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph to NME and Q.