Dennis Kelly
Dennis Kelly is a British writer and producer. He has worked for theatre, television and film.
For the American football offensive tackle, see Dennis Kelly (American football). For the Jamaican judge, see Dennis Kelly (judge).
Dennis Kelly
Barnet, London, England
Playwright, television writer, television producer, screenwriter, film producer
Debris (2003)
Osama the Hero (2005)
Love and Money (2006)
DNA (2008)
Orphans (2009)
Matilda the Musical (2010)
Utopia (2013)
His play DNA, first performed in 2007, became a core set-text for GCSE in 2010[1] and has been studied by approximately 400,000 students each year.[2] He wrote the book for Matilda the Musical, which featured music and lyrics from musician and comedian Tim Minchin. The musical went on to win multiple awards,[3] with Kelly receiving a Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical.[4] A film adaptation of the musical with screenplay by Kelly was released in December 2022.
For television, he is known for co-creating and co-writing the BBC Three sitcom Pulling, the Channel 4 conspiracy thriller Utopia, and the HBO and Sky Atlantic thriller The Third Day. Kelly also wrote the screenplay for the 2014 film Black Sea.[5]
Personal life[edit]
Kelly grew up on a council estate in Barnet, North London.[6] A child of an Irish family, he was one of five children and was raised as a Catholic.[7] He attended Finchley Catholic High School.[8][9] Leaving school at 16 years of age, Kelly went to work in a market and then at Sainsbury's.[10]
While working in supermarkets, he discovered theatre when he joined a local youth group, the Barnet Drama Centre.[7]
Kelly says that he struggled with alcoholism during much of his 20s.[10] He attended Alcoholics Anonymous and has been sober since 2001.[11]
At the age of 30, he graduated from Goldsmiths College, University of London with First Class Honours in Drama and Theatre Arts.
In September 2011 Kelly married Neapolitan actress Monica Nappo. They had met five years earlier when Nappo was appearing in an Italian premiere of one of Kelly's plays.[6] They separated in 2016 and divorced in 2017. In May 2022 he married Producer Katie Swinden, the couple have one daughter together.
At one point Kelly shared his home in Deptford with Vladimir Shcherban from the Belarus Free Theatre company. Kelly offered his home to Shcherban as a place to stay when Shcherban was facing homelessness. Shcherban's situation came as a result of him having to flee (with other members of the theatre company) from Belarus to London as a means to escape political censorship and persecution in the aftermath of the 2010 Belarusian presidential election, where oppositional candidates had been arrested.[12]