Wells started in cabaret at Oxford and began his television career as a writer on
That Was The Week That Was, the 1960s weekly satire show that launched the careers of
David Frost and
Millicent Martin, among others, and also appeared in the television programme
Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, as well as in ''
The Secret Policeman's Other Ball. Besides making cameo appearances in films such as Casino Royale (1967) and Rentadick (1972), television dramas like Casanova (1987), an episode of Lovejoy (1991) and comedy shows like Yes Minister, he also wrote television scripts and screenplays, such as Princess Caraboo'' (1994). In 1971, with
John Fortune, he published the comedy
A Melon for Ecstasy, about a man who consummates his love affair with a tree. Wells played the headmaster of Thursgood's Preparatory School in
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979). Wells was one of the original contributors to the satirical magazine
Private Eye and contributed to the column ''
Mrs Wilson's Diary'', the long-running spoof journal of the wife of Prime Minister
Harold Wilson. From 1979 he repeated that success with
Dear Bill, a series of letters (co-written with
Richard Ingrams) supposedly sent by
Denis Thatcher, husband of Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher, to
Bill Deedes. Wells developed the feature into a stage farce,
Anyone for Denis?, first performed in 1981, in which he played Denis Thatcher. Co-starring
Angela Thorne as Mrs. Thatcher, the play was a major West End hit, toured the UK and was
adapted for television.He co-wrote Alice in Wonderland, a musical adaptation of
Lewis Carroll’s novel with
Carl Davis, which debuted at
The Lyric Theatre in the West End, London. Wells also played Denis Thatcher in the Bond movie
For Your Eyes Only (1981). In 1991, he and Thorne again played the Thatchers in
Dunrulin, a one-off TV sitcom-like satirical look at the couple in retirement. He also voiced Arnold the Elephant, Edward the Monkey and Bert in the children's TV series
Charlie Chalk. In 1988,
Leonard Bernstein started working on a new version of his much-revised
operetta Candide. The author of the original book,
Hugh Wheeler, had died, and John Wells was asked to help revise the text. The first production of this "final version", by
Scottish Opera, was followed by a "final revised version" in 1989, performances of which have been released on CD and DVD. An insert in the DVD ("Bernstein and Voltaire"), written by Wells, explained what Bernstein had wanted in this final revised version. Wells authored
Rude Words in 1991, a history of the
London Library, for the institution's 150th anniversary. In 1997, Wells appeared in the BBC situation comedy
Chalk as ineffectual headmaster Richard Nixon. His fellow cast members do not recall him being ill on set, but he was too unwell to participate in the second series. Wells' last book,
House of Lords, was a best-seller and published a year before his death in 1998. The book is a historical and humorous study of the British peerage system. ==Personal life==