Nicholas Martin has worked as a croupier, a labourer, a bouncer and a barman. In his early twenties he worked at sea as a deck hand and later as a yacht captain. He then worked as a journalist and travel writer, contributing to The Sunday Times, the Guardian and various magazines, before becoming a screenwriter, graduating from the National Film and Television School in 1992. He lives in London.

Jasper Rees has been a journalist since 1988. He has written over the years for most broadsheets, but principally the Daily Telegraph, Independent, Evening Standard and The Times Saturday Magazine. He has also written for Vogue, Harper's, Radio Times and GQ. He is the author of the books, Bred of Heaven: One Man's Quest to Reclaim his Welsh Roots and I Found My Horn: One Man's Struggle with the Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument. He lives in London.