David Nolan is a British television producer and author, specialising in music and popular culture biographies, covering subjects from the Sex Pistols to Simon Cowell.
He tracked down the audience for the famous 1976 gig by the Sex Pistols at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall,[2] and discovered the reasons for the secrecy surrounding the family history of New Order frontman Bernard Sumner.
[3] He also incurred the wrath of Morrissey by turning him into a cartoon character for the Granada Television documentary These Things Take Time in 2002, after the former The Smiths singer refused to appear in the programme.
"[8] Nolan's first non-entertainment book to date was Tell The Truth And Shame The Devil in 2015, his account of the trial and imprisonment of Alan Morris - a teacher at his former school St Ambrose College - for historic abuse crimes.
[12] It was followed in 2020 by The Mermaid's Pool and in 2022 by The Ballad of Hanging Lees - all three books are classed as ‘Manc Noir’ and named after bodies of water in and around Manchester.