After spending some time with Joan Littlewood's 'Theatre Workshop' company at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, he was cast in the Granada television series, The Younger Generation in 1961 and had a musical, Solo, produced in 1962 at Cheltenham.

[4] The Bill Douglas Trilogy recounts the harrowing experiences of a young boy, Jamie, growing up in material and emotional poverty with his brother and grandmother; followed by incarceration in a children's home, and then living in a hostel for down-and-outs.

Eventually the call-up for national service allows Jamie to find freedom through his friendship with Robert, a young middle class Englishman who introduces him to books and the possibility of a more optimistic and fulfilling future.

The austere black and white images of the films embody a stillness and intensity reminiscent of silent cinema and this visual style is augmented by the equally spare and precise use of sound.

Just as the stillness of the image forces the audience to look, so the relative silence encourages greater attention to specific sounds – boots scraping on asphalt, the chirping of birds and the timbre of voices – granting an emotional power that many considered lost in the aural bombardment characterising much contemporary cinema.

The Trilogy gained a wealth of critical plaudits but Douglas struggled to raise financing for his next project, and was forced to find other ways of earning a living.