An English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a former professional rugby league player.

He wrote the screenplay for This Sporting Life (1963), directed by Lindsay Anderson, adapted from Storey's first novel of the same name, originally published in 1960. The film was the beginning of a long professional association with Anderson, whose film version of Storey's play In Celebration was released as part of the American Film Theatre series in 1975. Home and Early Days (both starred Sir Ralph Richardson, Home also starred Sir John Gielgud) were made into television films.

His novel Saville won the 1976 Booker Prize.