Born in Bristol, England, he was educated at Bristol Grammar School, and served his compulsory National Service as a clerk in Calcutta and later in the Combined Services Entertainment Unit in Singapore where he entertained the troops alongside John Schlesinger, Stanley Baxter, and Kenneth Williams, before going on to study acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He later claimed to have studied acting because there were no dedicated courses for playwrights. While he was working as a teacher he began to write television plays which achieved notice. His first play for the stage was "The Hooded Terror", part of a season of new plays at the Little Theatre in Bristol. He later wrote "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg" for the stage.