Revelations; I delivered my speech - and a shower of saliva in their laps

WE WERE quite an arrogant crowd of metropolitan schoolboys, brittle with a surface sophistication, because the whole of London was at our feet. I could stroll across from my school in Westminster to Olivier's Old Vic and get in for three shillings and six pence. People think theatre is dying today but I remember just walking into a lot of famous productions! I decided I would be an actor too, it seemed the glam thing to be. My mother had been very stagestruck too and had wanted to be an actress. Although having performed semi-professionally with Trevor Howard, she gave it up when she got married. Certainly holding an audience appeared to me an extraordinarily pleasurable sensation - but there was only one problem: I had no talent.

At 14, I played Gonzalo, the oldest character, in the school production of The Tempest. I thought I had been wonderful, despite the master who was directing rushing up to me after the dress rehearsal and blurting out: "You're terrible, you've got to get better."

On the first night, two great stars of the theatre, Jack Hawkins and Richard Attenborough, were sitting side by side in the front row - both had sons at the school. I advanced to the footlights and delivered my speech - and a shower of saliva into their laps!

The next year, 1968, the school put on Billy Budd and we all applied to be in it. I hoped to play one of the posh officers, but to my horror I was forced to audition for someone below decks. Being totally incapable of any accent, I produced an Australian cockney that Dick Van Dyke would have been proud of and everybody tittered. I can still see myself walking towards the noticeboard, behind one of those dreadful glass cases which only seem to exist in schools, and where the final cast was pinned up. It felt far worse than getting any exam result. I scanned the list several times but my name was nowhere to be seen. So in vengeful mood I founded a theatre magazine, to review shows and movies around town, but with the express intention of butchering this production. I gave it a very camp name, for reasons I can't now remember, Aubrey and Melissa. I did most of the writing and - busking it - even reviewed things I hadn't seen!

Just before the curtain was about to rise on Billy Budd, I finally gained a position under the spotlights as the junior Michael Billington was taken ill. He was to have played the minor role of the surgeon and I was offered the part. I was in a very difficult position: should I act or stick to being a critic? Coming on for only two lines, I decided to be in the unique position of doing both!

One of the dramatic climaxes of the play is when Billy Budd has struck the officer and I, as surgeon, inspect the body and declare him dead. So in my eighteenth century britches, obviously designed for somebody much larger, and a sword at my side; I waddled onto the stage. I can still remember bending down over the corpse but even before I had opened my mouth the whole audience was shaking with laughter! For some reason they found my performance hysterically funny and the play dived into a moment of Monty Pythonism! Back in the wings my English master, the director, screamed at me: "You've ruined the evening, you've ruined my production." Trying to maintain my dignity, I replied that they were just laughing with relief. Unfortunately, I still had two more nights to perform. There was not so much hilarity and I tried to just mumble my lines. But it was impossible to ignore the evidence of my own eyes: I would never become an actor.

Coming from a Jewish background - although my mother was far from the pushy stereotype - there was pressure not only to succeed but to do so at an early age. Not necessarily to make lots of money but to show that I could acheive recognition. Academically I was OK, but my brother had a scholarship and went on to be a professor of chemistry, so I needed another path. Surprisingly, after such a public and emphatic rejection, I felt full of energy. Everybody was telling me I could write and to prove myself - to family and school friends who were all interested in show business too - I decided to become a playwright. I didn't calculate, I just blindly followed my urge.

The play I wrote became the next year's production, and as it talked about sex, this was rather brave of my school. Ironically it was directed by the same guy whose Billy Budd I had ruined.

While I was still at school, the play was even accepted by Hampstead and a young man called Richard Eyre was going to direct it. But unfortunately the theatre changed artistic director and one of his first acts was to cancel my play! But I had discovered my destiny early on and gained the respect of my peers.

If I needed another reminder that I couldn't act, it came with my next play. One of the actors was ill for the dress rehearsal and I offered to go on, so everybody could act round me. I confidently thought I knew the part - after all I had written it and had been watching every day. But the lines refused to come on cue and everybody kept looking at me despairingly. I was finally cured of all acting ambitions.

At Westminster School, when doing exams and a play at the same time, I was told something, which I don't believe anybody would say today. The same English master counselled: "The more things you do, the better you do them." It is good advice for young people because they shouldn't worry about exam results to the point of being too focussed. The maverick was encouraged in the late Sixties, but today they are frowned on. I have a daughter of 13, so I know how schools reflect the wider world. Everything now is very streamlined. It's much tougher growing up and my latest film, The Tribe, is a response to that. The young characters are attracted to an experimental cult and their own alternative world where they can have the sexual and creative freedom of the Sixties. I believe today's young people will react to everybody being so homogenised and streamlined, and will create their own structures.

Looking back over my work, I've often been a little ahead of events and got things right. I have a feeling that in the next ten years there will be more individuals like my characters. If the reaction is not going to be ideological, and left and right is no longer important, it will be against everything being in straight lines.

Interview by Andrew G Marshall

The Tribe is on Sunday, 21 June on BBC2 and his play Talk of the City is currently at the Swan Theatre, Stratford on Avon.

Last week's interview with Beryl Bainbridge for Revelations was by Veronica Groocock.