John Wilson

So when did you first read it?

So this is well before your time as a newspaper journalist working for the Manchester Guardian and then The Observer.

Yes.

How familiar was Fleet Street, the atmosphere of the place, the working day, the sort of characters that you met there?

How familiar was that, having read Scoop?

You wrote your own Fleet Street comic novel towards the end of the morning in 1967.

So you were still working at the Observer then when you wrote that book.

Yes, I was.

Did colleagues recognise fictionalised versions of themselves?

Wrong work, wrong genre.

Throughout your writing career, there has been not only a huge range of writing genres and themes, but the tone as well, from the very serious, the scientific and the political works, to the deeply farcical.

Let's talk for a moment about your most famous comedy, Noises Off.

Inspired by watching the very first play that you wrote, The Two of Us, watching it from backstage in a theatre.

So how did that experience inspire Noises Off?

It's been performed all around the world ever since.

Everywhere, yes.

I'm starting to know what God felt like when he sat out there in the darkness creating the world.

The first play that you mentioned, The Two of Us, in 1970, I'm not sure if it was a massive success initially, but then it went on to become acclaimed, didn't it?

And now, of course, you are regarded as one of our greatest living playwrights.

But in the notes that you sent us, you said, I despised theatre when I was younger.