Brian Highley (born 22 December 1943 in

Halifax Halifax commonly refers to: *Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada * Halifax, West Yorkshire, England *Halifax (bank), a British bank Halifax may also refer to: Places Australia *Halifax, Queensland, a coastal town in the Shire of Hinchinbrook *Halifax ...

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

) is an English writer.

Biography

Brian Highley was born in

, England. Following a short career in teaching, he became involved with the music industry and is credited (in

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...

's 2019 autobiography '' Me'' and in Ben Graham's 2020 book ''Pink Floyd are Fogbound in Paris'') with giving

his first major gig at the ill-fated August 1970 Yorkshire Folk, Blues and Jazz Festival (the Krumlin Festival). His music promotion career continued into the late 1970s with events headlined by

the Police The Police were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. For most of their history the line-up consisted of primary songwriter Sting (lead vocals, bass guitar), Andy Summers (guitar) and Stewart Copeland (drums, percussion). The Poli ...

the Stranglers The Stranglers are an English rock band who emerged via the punk rock scene. Scoring 23 UK top 40 singles and 19 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving bands to have origin ...

the Pretenders Pretenders are an English–American rock band formed in March 1978. The original band consisted of founder and main songwriter Chrissie Hynde (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), James Honeyman-Scott (lead guitar, backing vocals, keyboards), Pete Fa ...

, and many of the chart bands from the

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

era. He was a UK TV scriptwriter for ''

Spitting Image ''Spitting Image'' is a television in the United Kingdom, British satire, satirical television puppet show, created by Peter Fluck, Roger Law and Martin Lambie-Nairn. First broadcast in 1984, the series was produced by 'Spitting Image Productio ...

'', and feature writer for national magazines. In 1984 Highley became a UK question writer for ''

Trivial Pursuit ''Trivial Pursuit'' is a board game in which winning is determined by a player's ability to answer trivia and popular culture questions. Players move their pieces around a board, the squares they land on determining the subject of a question ...

''. He was initially recruited to write questions for the UK 'Young Player's' edition. His contribution led to him being involved in the ''Trivial Pursuit'' creators' new game, UBI. He researched and wrote all of the questions for the 1990 BBC 1 game show ''

'' and for 27 years was the sole writer of Trivial Pursuit board games for the UK. Highley also produced the questions for the UK edition of the Swedish board game ''Insikt'', for UK UBI, which was the follow-up to ''Trivial Pursuit'' and for the American games ''Been There Done That'' and ''TimeTripper''. His 2012 ''Trivial Pursuit'' projects were exclusively for the US market. ''The Trivial Pursuit Rolling Stones Collector's Edition'', on which his editor was former

Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...

bassist

Bill Wyman William George Wyman ( né Perks; born 24 October 1936) is an English musician who achieved international fame as the bassist for the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1993. In 1989, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a membe ...

and the ''Classic Rock Edition''.

Books

Six books by Brian Highley are available in paperback: *''In Pursuit of Trivia'' (2015), (a memoir) rewrite Second Edition October 2021. *''Stuff They Didn't Teach You in School'' (2017), (a miscellany of unusual and humorous facts) *''The Quizmaster's Quiz Book'' (2019) *''Quizmaster's Multiple Choice Quiz Book'' (2021) *''City, Town and Village Trivia'' (2020) (Lesser known facts about locations in England, Scotland and Wales) *''70 Years of Number One Hits'', Amazon, November 2022.

References

External links

"In pursuit of the completely trivial"
at HighBeam, by Rosie Millard, ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

'', 31 October 1994
"Modern pursuit where triviality is the name of the game at board"
by David Lister, ''The Independent'', 17 October 1995 {{DEFAULTSORT:Highley, Brian English screenwriters English male screenwriters Living people Writers from Halifax, West Yorkshire 1943 births