Wednesday 24th June 2026
The Best Exotic Hotel- Growing Old Disgracefully
Deborah will talk about how the film of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel came about – how our attitude to ageing has changed, helped by the film, and what it was like to go on set in India and meet the stars. And how Deborah’s stories reflect her own life.
She will also share how her dating experiences as an older woman, both online and in real life, and how this led to Deborah writing ‘The Black Dress’, her latest novel, which is about the dearth of men when one’s older, and how Deborah’s fictional heroine buys a little black dress and gatecrashes strangers’ funerals to get her hands on the grieving widowers.
Speaker: Deborah Moggach has written 20 novels and 2 books of short stories. She adapted several of these novels for TV, including “Seesaw”, “Stolen” and “Final Demand”. Other writers’ books she’s adapted include Nancy Mitford’s “Love in a Cold Climate”, Anne Fine’s “Goggle-Eyes” (for which Deborah was given the Writers Guild Award for Best Adapted Screenplay), “The Diary of Anne Frank” for the BBC, and the movie of “Pride and Prejudice”, starring Keira Knightley, for which Deborah was nominated for a BAFTA. Deborah co-wrote the screenplay (with Tom Stoppard) of her novel “Tulip Fever” which was released as a film starring Alicia Vikander and Judi Dench. Deborah’s novel “These Foolish Things” was made into the hit movie “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and she just adapted it as a stage play starring Hayley Mills, which has toured the UK. Deborah’s latest novel is “The Black Dress”.
Deborah is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a past chair of the Society of Authors and past Executive Committee member of PEN. She was awarded the OBE for services to literature and drama.
